


She Always Knows

by lalalena



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Drama, Eventual Romance, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2019-10-13 01:16:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 28,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17478527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalalena/pseuds/lalalena
Summary: Felicity Smoak moved to Starling City after living in Gotham, vigilantes seeming to follow her where she goes. So when a green hooded vigilante sparks her interest, she knows exactly what she is in for.





	1. Chapter 1

At sixteen floors up, Felicity Smoak had a pretty good view of Starling City; People below walking to their destinations in a hurry, running into each other as they look at their phones. She wondered where they were going, work? Home? To meet someone? 

She chewed on her pen while watching them, wondering if the ink would ever explode and make it look like she was a vampire who just had lunch. That couldn’t happen though, she thought, vampires were not up during the day, this was not one of those kinds of stories. Having someone watch you sleep was creepier than anything. 

Sighing, Felicity turned around to her desk waking up her monitor. As Head of Applied Sciences at Queen Consolidated, Felicity had meetings upon meetings with the CEO and CFO to talk about what was going on in the Applied Sciences department. 

Which was why she had a big presentation today with the new CEO, Oliver Queen, along with her, Isabel Rochev who was not her favorite person but couldn’t avoid and saw her almost on a daily basis now that she was the CFO after what had happened a few months ago? 

A few months ago. Felicity closed her eyes at the thought, thinking of the 503 people who had lost their lives in what is now known as the Undertaking. She cried the night the Undertaking happened while watching the news. There she was, safe in her apartment away from The Glades, away from the destruction as people were running for their lives. 

She even tried to help them, tried to find the bomb that was going to go off, hack her way into the bomb’s system and dismantle it. She found the bomb with two seconds left on the timer. She couldn’t do anything, couldn’t tell the man in the green hood where it was so he could do his arrowy thing and save the city. No, she couldn’t. So she sat there, in her apartment feeling the vibration from the earthquake that was miles away. Her bookshelf rattled, the glass of wine on her coffee table fell, splattering her carpet in red. She didn’t care, didn’t move as she cried for those lost, cried for the families, even cried the Arrow.

Blinking back tears, Felicity stood up, “Get it together Smoak.” She whispered to herself while smoothing out her dress. 

Grabbing her tablet she walked out of her office, she walked passes her assistant, Andi’s desk. A shorter women about the same age of Felicity with straight long brown hair and a very bubbly personality that makes anyone smile when they come in. When Felicity went through the hiring process for an assistant when she came to Queen Consolidated, she had no idea what to look for in potential candidates. As soon as Andi came in, she knew she was hired; a smile so big it made her smile, references up the wazoo and she knew Excel, so Felicity was happy she wouldn’t have to explain that.

“Wish me luck.” Felicity said with a wave.

“Good luck!” called Andi looking up from her computer.

“If I am not back in two hours, come get me with an emergency!” Felicity called back, pushing the elevator button to go up.

“It’ll be fine! You got this!” Andi said, reaching for the ringing phone. “applied Sciences, Felicity Smoak’s office.”

Felicity stepped onto the elevator, sighing for the umpteenth time today. She was not looking forward to this meeting.

Felicity thought again of the Arrow; he hasn’t shown his face in five months, or hood for lack of better word, Felicity thought, huffing to herself, but she knew why, she always knew. She just hoped he was OK. 

After all, she knew a thing or two about these night time vigilantes. 

Felicity Smoak was born and raised in Los Vegas, living in a small apartment with her parents Donna Smoak and Noah Kuttler. She can remember them fighting all the time; she thinks she can even remember hearing them while in the womb. They always fought, seeming to put her in the middle of it, always forcing her to pick sides. Their fighting always being about money; Noah gambling it away every weekend and Donna spending money on flashy dresses and shoes.

“I need these dresses for work!” Donna yelled one night in the bedroom, Felicity sitting at the table eating dinner alone. “I need to look good in order to get tips because you lose all our money on the slots!”

“The only reason I do that is to try to make money for your damn dresses!” Noah yelled back.

Felicity rolled her eyes and continued eating her cereal, looking at the bunny on the box.

Even though her family did not have a lot of money, Donna always made sure that Felicity had what she needed. Felicity never complained about the fact that her clothes were from the Goodwill, she didn’t want to be the reason her parents had another fight. She never complained that she didn’t have the newest toy or didn’t have the light up shoes that also had sparkles all over them.

She turned to books to escape the constant fighting from her parents, her mother bring her to the library when she had an afternoon off. She would come home with stacks of books she would finish in just a few days.

Her favorite book was Matilda, hoping one day she would wake up and find out her had powers like Matilda. One day she tried to close the ugly living room curtains with her mind when Noah threw open the bedroom door.

“Magic does not exist.” Noah said harshly to a five year old Felicity after having a very loud fight with Donna about money. “Get your head out of the clouds.” He said storming towards the front door and ripping it open then disappearing though it. 

Donna worked at a casino as a cocktail waitress and was gone most of the time and Noah, well who knows where he was all the time. So when Felicity’s parents were gone, she would spend time with the older couple down the hall, Mr. and Mrs. Brown.

Mr. and Mrs. Brown were a sweet old, African American couple in their late sixties. They had three kids and they had a few kids of their own but they were not able to seem their grandchild that often as the family has spread over the country, but the treated Felicity as she were a grandchild of theirs and she loved them. 

When Felicity had to go over to Mr. and Mrs. Brown’s place, she would run over there excited to tell them about a new book she was reading. They would always listen to her with rapt attention and ask her questions about the book and the characters. Mrs. Brown would let her borrow books and play out sense in her favorite book that week.

Felicity would help Mrs. Brown bake cookies for the holidays and attempt to crack the eggs into the batter, always failing to not get the shells in, but Mrs. Brown would only smile and pick them out, “There is always next time.” She would say calmly to Felicity when there were tears in her eyes. She would let Felicity frost some cookies into Christmas trees and Santa hats, and even though Felicity was Jewish, she never minded, she understood these cookies were for other people and would even get to frost some cookies to look like the Star of Davis for her own pleasure. 

Felicity was convinced Mr. Brown was a hoarder. There were trinkets everywhere and a room filled with technical equipment that fascinated Felicity. When she asked him about it one evening, he said he grew up in a poorer time and possessions were valuable to him. She still didn’t understand completely but went along with it anyway. 

Felicity spent her seventh birthday with the Browns, but she didn’t mind. Mrs. Brown had made her favorite dinner, mac and cheese, and chocolate cake to go with some mint chocolate ice cream. 

They gave her her own brand new copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, a book she constantly kept renting from the public library. She jumped with joy and into their arms to give them a huge hug, wanting to start reading as soon as possible. 

When Felicity’s father left, she wasn’t surprised and she didn’t cry, instead she sat by her mother’s side, rubbing her back while her mother cried into her hands, shaking. “We’ll be fine.” Felicity whispered, “we’ll be fine.” Not sure if she was trying to convince her mom or herself. 

A few months after he father left, Felicity was at the Browns, her mother picked up yet another shift for the weekend, she did that a lot now that her father was gone, that just meant she spend a lot more time with the Browns, which was perfectly fine in Felicity’s book. 

When Felicity walked into the spare room where Mr. Brown was, she saw he was building something. It turned out to be a computer, which Mr. Brown had Felicity help him build. She found out she loved it and it can surprisingly easy to her and with Mr. Browns help, they finished building an entire computer in just a few weeks, all from parts.

Felicity found she hated mysteries. She avoided the section ok book in the library and never wanted to play Clue when Mrs. Brown offered. She never could figure out the reason her father left and hated that mystery, but she found out computers where not mysterious. 

Computers seemed to talk to Felicity on another level. She knew exactly what was going on with them and knew how to work and fix them. To Felicity, they were not mysterious, thus began her technology journey. 

When Felicity was 14, she began high school, she always knew she was smart in middle school, but in high school, she excelled. Math and science came very easy to her and she enjoyed it very much. She supposed it was because she could figure out the mysterious equations with ease. Her freshman year, she was in senior and level classes and for math, the high school offered a college level class, and again, she got straight A’s. 

She joined the math league because she was good at it and so she wouldn’t have to be home all the time. She mom said she didn’t need to take a job while in school; Donna wanted Felicity to get good grades and get a scholarship to a good college. 

Junior year of high school, Mr. Brown passed away. Felicity was devastated. She tried to spend time with Mrs. Brown, but she was busy planning the funeral and having her children and grandchildren around to help her move. Mrs. Brown was going to move in with one of her children, in Florida, Felicity held her tight and cried, she was sadder that Mrs. Brown was leaving than her own father. 

After the Funeral, Felicity found Mrs. Brown sitting in the spare room surrounded by the trinkets and gadgets that were Mr. Brown are now all packed away to move and give away. Felicity sat on a box next to Mrs. Brown, saying nothing. Mrs. Brown sniffed and tuned to Felicity, “He would have wanted you to have this.” She said touching the computer that Felicity and Mr. Brown had built together. 

“I couldn’t.” Felicity replied, eyes red.

Mrs. Brown had moved away to Florida, but not without long hugs and more tears from Felicity, when Mrs. Brown had said, “You be good.” 

The rest of Felicity’s high school career went by in a blur. She graduated with a 4.0 grade average, at the top of her class and valedictorian. She gave the cliché ‘our stories are just beginning’ speech with shaking hands and a flush creeping up her neck. Donna was in a sparkly gold dress and high heels, cheering her on, taking her picture on a disposable camera. 

After that summer, Felicity moved to Massachusetts to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on a full scholarship where she got her masters in computer science and cyber security. 

She loved it there. It away from Los Vegas, away from her mom, away from her old life. She got along with her roommate, Emily, well and they would stay up late studying, and go to parties. Emily was there to back Felicity up when she kicked a lacrosse player in the balls after giving her a bit too much attention. 

Freshman year of college, Felicity was ranked second in the National Information Technology competition, which she was only a tiny bit disappointed about the fact she didn’t get first place. 

Towards the end of her freshman year, Felicity met someone named Copper Sheldon, a tall skinny boy in the same year as her. He had brown hair and a smile Felicity fell for the moment they were pared up for a group project in one of her classes.

They had dated until near the end of their senior year and in that time had created a group with Cooper’s roommate Myron Forest, where they called themselves the ‘Hacktivist’s’ and referred to themselves and the modern day technology Robin Hood’s. A few months before graduations, Cooper was arrested for a super virus when he attempted to delete all student loans for everyone. 

After graduating summa cum laude, Felicity had gotten a job at Wayne Enterprises in Gotham City working in the Wayne Technology – Applied Sciences division under Lucius Fox. She had really enjoyed working there, learning many new things from Mr. Fox. She had also met many new, interesting people there, such as Richard and him.

After a few years and a need for new scenery, Felicity decided to move to Starling City. He wasn’t too thrilled about the idea, but he understood her need for space and her need to get out of Gotham. So she got a job as head of Applied Sciences at Queen Consolidated thanks to Mr. Fox and Bruce Wayne himself when they so kindly wrote letters of recommendation to a man named Walter Steel, CEO of QC. 

So after a year and a half of living in Starling City and the green hooded vigilantly arrived, she wasn’t too surprised, and she was used to one dressed in all black. She also wasn’t surprised to when she figured out who the one dressed in green really was. 

The elevator dinged and the door opened up and Felicity stepped out. 

After all, Felicity hated mysteries and she always knew.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I forgot to mention in the first chapter that this is my first fanfiction ever! I am not a writer so this will not be the best but I have had this story in my head for months now, like constantly thinking about it to the point that I gave in and needed to attempt to write it! 
> 
> I hope you guys like it and enjoy!
> 
> I obviously don’t own any characters (I wish)

Felicity stepped of the elevator, smoothing her hair and purple dress and also checking her teeth in the refection of her tablet to make sure she didn’t have any fuchsia lipstick there. When she decided she was good, she took yet another deep breath, squared her shoulders, chin up high and walked towards Mr. Queen’s executive assistant, Jeremy’s desk. Jeremy is a shorter man with glasses and a passion to fetch Mr. Queen his coffee and organize his schedule.

Jeremy looked up, straightening his glasses and smiled wide when he saw Felicity.

“Felicity! Good to see you! How are you? I hope you’ve been good! Mr. Queen isn’t here yet but ,” he dropped his voice into a whisper, “she is already in there.” With an eye roll he added, “Good luck with that, she is extra she-devily today.”

Felicity chuckled. She always thought that Jeremy was the male version of her; never seeming able to stop talking except she would hate to have to grab coffee, feeling as though her master’s degree would be a complete waste up her if she was his EA.

To each his own though, Felicity thought, smiling at Jeremy. “Thanks for the heads up.”

She walked into the conference room and saw Isobel Rochev and Walter Steel talking to each other. 

“Felicity, hello.” Walter greeted her with a smile, walking towards and giving her a hug.

Felicity hugged him back with a huge smile on her face. “I didn’t know you would be here. I thought you had an important meeting with The Queen or something.” She said pulling away. Walter had moved back to London after the Undertaking, divorcing Moira in the process and leaving the company under new management. She liked Walter. When she first started out as head of her department, he helped her thrive and feel at home. He even felt like a father figure in a way to her. He was the closest thing to a father she had in a very long time. So she was sad and unsurprised when he left to go back home but they still kept in contact often, she even asked him advice when it came to business, and he was always happy to lend a hand when he could. 

“I do have an important meeting with a Queen, just not the one you thought. I wanted to be here to support you and show Oliver the ropes. I believe he needs all the help he can get.” Walter said with a chuckle.   
“Right you are sir.” Felicity went to the head of the conference table and started setting up the presentation she had ready.   
Isobel Rochev had her arms crossed and a scowl on her face. “Where is he?” She asked, “He is always late, I don’t know how he is in charge of this company.”  
Felicity blew out a breath, suppressing the urge to roll her eyes as she typed away on her tablet. If she was being honest, she was glad about the delay. It wasn’t as though this meeting was a make or break for her career with the new CEO or trying to impress him, it was nerve-wracking because it was her telling the new CEO what was going to go down in his business. She was, after all, trying to save this company and help hundreds of people keep their jobs.  
“He will be here soon.” Walter said calmly, handing out Felicity’s booklets for her.   
As soon as he said that, Oliver Queen came stalking into the room followed by his body guard/ driver John Diggle. Mr. Queen was wearing a light grey suit with a red tie with a scowl etched on his face, his thumb and pointer finger rubbing together. Mr. Diggle whispered something in his ear before walking out of the room.

“Alright let’s do this.” Mr. Queen said in an impatient tone, taking a seat near the head of the table, in front of Felicity seeming very impatient to have this over with. 

Felicity remembers the first time she met Mr. Queen. It was a year and a half after getting the job at QC and two months after he had come back from the island. She just had a meeting with Walter and they were walking towards the elevator as she was still talking animatedly about a new advancement in a piece of technology that she was very excited about when Moira and Oliver came walking towards them off the elevator. 

“… and it would help fighter pilots fly with more accuracy. Ferris Aircraft is already itching to get their hands on it. So I think if we-“

“Are you ready for lunch?” Moira asked with a polite smile at Felicity; Walter greeting her with a kiss on the cheek. Felicity averted her eyes down to her tablet; she has always been an awkward shy around the Queen Regent, looking regal as ever in her black skirt suit and her hair not moving an inch, always seemingly put together. Felicity glanced at what she was wearing, a wrinkled purple dress with a cutout on in between her collar bones. Her clothes were nice as she always spend the extra money on clothes and shoes, she loved shoes, but standing next to Mrs. Queen, she always felt her self-esteem plummet. She wished she ironed her dress last night instead of watch that rerun of Game of Thrones.

“Most certainly. But first, Oliver I’d like to introduce Felicity Smoak, she is the new head of applied sciences.” Walter said, gesturing to Felicity. 

Felicity looked up as Oliver stuck his hand out, “Nice to meet you.” He said in a boring voice, his face remaining impassive. He was wearing dark jeans and a dark Henley, his blond hair in a buzz cut. He also seemed strung tight, she noticed, like he was on edge; shoulders tight, his jaw clenched and eyes glancing around the room as if waiting for something. She supposed she was right in thinking he was waiting for something to happen. Five years on an island would put anyone on edge constantly. His nighttime activities probably didn’t help his constant tense posture and alertness, she thought. 

Felicity shook his hand, “Nice to meet you too sir, Oliver, Mr. Queen, sir. Good to see you alive and well. Or at least alive.” She said in a rush. “Not saying you aren’t well, you could be well, or not, I mean you were gone for a while, who would be well after that? You look well anyway, but I don’t know, I didn’t know you before and what you looked like or if you were well or not. But nice to meet you.” She added kind of lamely, closing her eyes and bowing her head in embarrassment, counting down from three. 

The three of them looked at Felicity, “Well,” said Walter, used to Felicity’s rambling and changing the subject, “shall we go?” he asked the other two.

The four of them walked towards the elevator, Felicity a step behind. “Felicity comes from Wayne Enterprises with reference letters from Lucius Fox and Bruce Wayne himself.” Walter said, beaming at Felicity.

Oliver’s head whipped around to look at Felicity at the mention of Bruce Wayne, Walter pressing the 16th floor and the lobby button, reaching for Moira’s hand.

“You know Bruce Wayne?” Oliver asked his tone a bit harsh.

“Not-not personally, no.” Felicity stammered, wondering how in the world he didn’t just receive whiplash from how fast he looked at her. “I just worked with him a bit when he was in the applied sciences to learn about the company when he took over as CEO.”

“Hmm.” Oliver breathed, “I met him once. Before he took over his company. He was a big prick.” 

“Oliver!” Moira scolded, “You cannot say that! He is a family friend!”

“Well he was. Probably still is, right? Oliver asked Felicity, staring straight ahead.

Felicity laughed under her breath. “Mr. Wayne is very passionate about what he does and can be difficult sometimes.” She smiled to herself, “But he isn’t so bad. He is actually a very good boss and CEO. He cares about his employees and the city.”

Oliver huffed out of his nose, “I still think he’s a prick.” He mumbled under his breath so his mother wouldn’t hear.

Felicity smiled as the elevator door opened to her floor, stepping out, she turned to Oliver again, “Oh I don’t know,” she said with a knowing smile, “You two would probably get along great.” She added then walked away to her office as the elevator door closed, Oliver starring after her with a surprised look on his face.

Shaking her head back to the present, Felicity smiled at the three as the other two took their seats; Walter giving her an encouraging smile. And so she began her speech. She began explaining about how, after the Undertaking, stocks for Queen Consolidated had plummeted and how after Merlyn Global had shut down, hundreds of people lost their jobs. Queen Consolidated was on the verge of a collapse, shareholders were pissed but luckily for them, Felicity had an idea that could save jobs at Queen consolidated and even employ those who lost their jobs.

“Merge?!” Oliver asked loudly in disbelief, putting his hands on the table in fists, pushing the booklets she put together to the edge of the table. 

“With Wayne Enterprises, yes.” Replied Felicity calmly. She knew this was coming, knew he would not be happy about the idea of doing business with what he would probably refer to as the enemy.

Oliver shook his head; “No.” was all he said, curtly.

“With all due respect Mr. Queen,” Felicity retorted with emphasis on his name, “I am trying to help save your company, save people hundreds of jobs and let people get their jobs back after what happened a few months ago.” Felicity was fuming, she hadn’t even gotten to the why and Mr. Queen was already shutting down her idea. “I do believe you can put aside some childish beef you have with a successful business man and keep your company afloat.”

Oliver stared at Felicity, his jaw tight in agitation 

“With this merger, Wayne Enterprises and Queen Consolidated could really benefit from each other. With Wayne Technologies, they are always researching new tech, WE also sells military equipment as does QC but more weapons and munitions, which does not look very good for the company’s reputation right now.” Felicity pauses, letting the information sink into Oliver’s thick head. “If we deprive the company of selling our military weapons and give them over to Wayne Enterprises and take over the research of technology they have acquired in the past few years, such as a more reliable, better way to have green energy here in Starling City, it would look better and benefit both companies.” Felicity was pacing during this speech but stopped in front of the table, looking at Oliver. “Applied Sciences would take over the green materials they are giving us, letting us use them and create better equipment for those in the Glades along with a more green way to create less of a footprint of destroying air in the countries where productions of these materials are being built. While also creating less hazardousness waste to make Wayne Enterprises look better than it does now.” She was breathing heavily, glaring at Oliver; the words rushed out of her, and in her anger with trying to get him to understand, had her hands on the table, leaning over it. “We can create green energy that LexCorp doesn’t even have. That’s huge.”

“And if I say no?” Oliver asked, crossing his arms in a very childish way.

Felicity stood up straight, “The company goes bankrupt as the shareholders bail out, the company is liquidized to pay off its debts, or someone bids to take over the company. There is already an interested buyer, some guy who has makes smart watches and is trying to create exoskeletons for the army.” She matched Oliver’s body language and crossed her arms, glancing at Walter and Ms. Rochev, she added hesitantly, “And Mr. Steel already signed off on it while he was still CEO, so has Mr. Rochev along with the Board. Mr. Wayne, Mr. Fox and the board of Wayne Enterprises have also signed off on it. The plan is in motion, Mr. Queen. They are throwing us a bone, and I recommend you take it before they throw us out into the cold.”

Oliver did not look happy about this new plan but with his family’s company at stake, he knew he didn’t to do anything to save it. “Fine.” He said curtly, again. “What happens now?”

Felicity blew out a breath and quickly replied “I am forming a plan of action with Wayne’s people in their tech division and then we all meet after the new year. They are coming here on the 25th of January where we will all get together and discuss the upcoming events.”

Oliver’s mouth went into a straight line, thinking. “Fine.” He said again. And with that, he stood up swiftly, his chair almost falling over in the process, and walking briskly out of the room and towards the elevator, Mr. Diggle following him. 

Felicity let out a breath she was holding, hoping it would be the last sigh of the day. “Alright.” She said, nodding her head.

 

It was late. Too late in Felicity’s book to still be at work. The sun had set hours ago, she sent Andi home about two hours ago after she fell asleep at her desk but here she was, still at work, two weeks after the meeting with Oliver Queen, working on what she is referring to as ‘Operation Wayne-Queen ohmygodthereisalotofpaperwork’.

She had been corresponding with those over in Gotham and everything was going smoothly so far. There was a lot of work to do and more work ahead of them. There was even a lot of legal aspects to merging two companies on a project, so that added a bit of work to her plate as Legal needed plenty of information before this project could start to actually begin.

Her office was clad in dark; a desk lamp, her computer monitor and the moon her only light source in her office, soft classical music playing in the background. The River Flows Through You playing, her favorite song. Classical music relaxed her and she defiantly needed to relax, her shoulders have been tense for the past two weeks and a kink in her neck will not seem to go away. She jots a message on a sticky note to remind her to go see her chiropractor soon. 

Stretching her arms over her head, Felicity yawns and reaches for her coffee mug and takes a sip. It’s cold. She makes a disgusted face at the coffee as if it just insulted her ancestors and stands up putting her heels back on and picking up the sticky note and her coffee mug. She walked over to Andi’s desk and set the note down so Andi could schedule the appointment for her. She was a busy, hard working women, especially now with ‘Operation Wayne-Queen’ she wasn’t even sure of her daily schedule without Andi’s help. 

She went to the small kitchen on her floor that consisted on a fridge, sink, microwave, and a coffee bar, her favorite spot. Dumping out the cold coffee, she poured herself a new cup of coffee and put extra sugars in this one, feeling as though she needed the sugar rush to make it home. She thought of her home, where there was a nice tub waiting to be filled with bubbles, a bottle of red wine that needs to be open, and a warm cozy bed waiting for her crawl under the blankets and pass out for a good ten hours. 

She took a sip of her coffee, closing her eyes at the aroma and taste, her spirits already picking up. Carrying her mug, she walked back to her office still thinking about her warm bed and the episode of Doctor Who she missed to be here and stopped in front of her desk straightening up some papers when she froze, someone was in the room with her.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to mention before but I could not think of any actually good reason as to why Wayne Enterprises and Queen Consolidated would merge, so I just made something up. The ‘Why’ they are merging is not vital to the story, so if it doesn’t make sense, it’s all good, it’s not that important. It’s more so we learn more about Felicity’s past. Yes, there is more!!
> 
> In case you haven’t realized, this takes place in season two of Arrow but Oliver never came to Felicity for help in the first season. There will be similarities but not in the same order.

Felicity froze. Someone was in the room with her, she could sense them, standing behind her. She put the papers down slowly, keeping her breathing even as her heart rate speed up and reached for the letter opener that resembled Bilbo Baggin’s sword, Sting, something she found at Barnes and Noble and had to have as soon as she saw it. 

No, she thought, please please no not him. 

She took mini Sting into her hand with a tight grip. She spun around on her heel at top speed, her hair, which has been taken out of its holder hours ago, flipped out, her eyes wide as she let go of mini Sting and heard it hit its target.

She let out a breath she had been holding. It was only him. The Arrow. He was standing in the corner of the room, the darkest part of her office. She could still see him clearly though, the moon light making him visible and he was looking down at mini Sting where it had stuck into his let breast plate right where his heart is. It was sharp for a letter opener so it had stuck in there pretty well, just a few centimeters in. He needs better protection for his chest, she thought. It didn’t look as though he had much protecting him, just green fabric. That’s stupid. She thought, he could get hurt, like injury from a letter opener. Hasn’t he seen any movie ever? That’s where everyone always gets shot at.

Felicity stood still, her butt and hands leaning into her desk, looking from his hood to mini Sting and waited for him to move, still keeping her breath even, the red in her face slowly fading away. He was in his green suit, his feet apart, ready to move if he needed, his quiver on his back and his bow was leaning up against one of her comfortable, flowery chairs in her office she got from Target. Odd, she wondered, why would he set it down? Her eyes roamed down to his right hand where he as holding something black and flat that looked to be in bad shape. A laptop. With bullet holes? Ok? 

The Arrow was still looking down at the letter opener as he reached up with left hand, slowly and pulled it out easily. It was bent, she frowned, she would have to go get a new one when she had the time, maybe this weekend? Felicity shook her head, she needed to focus. Looking back up at The Arrow, she saw he was holding out the letter opener now, she couldn’t see his face but could tell he was confused.

When The Arrow spoke, his voice was deep and altered so she would recognize him. A voice modulator, she realized, suppressing the urge to roll her eyes. Of course he didn’t know she knew who he was, but if he didn’t want to her to know, she was not going to ruin his fun. 

“This is a letter opener.” He stated, still holding Mini Sting out, curiosity showing through the voice modular.

Felicity looked at the mini sword in his hand and back up to the darkness where his face is. “Yes, and you owe me a new one. Technically it’s your faults it’s bent. You shouldn’t be sneaking up on someone in the dark. It’s not cool.” She told him in a tight voice, glaring at him. She was very upset about Mini Sting. 

“This is a letter. Opener.” He repeated the shock even more clearly in his voice. He had no idea how she was able to use a letter opener as a throwing star. 

“Do you want a gold star? We have already established that.” She bit back, shuffling from one foot to the other. She wished he was wearing her panda flats right now and not her Jimmy Choos, her feet were starting to hurt from being on them all day.

He tossed the letter opener onto the floral chair his bow was leaning against, she watched it bounce once then averted her gaze back to him, glaring at him. She waited for him to say something as they both stared at each other, The Arrow still in awe at her, looking at her curiously. 

Holding the laptop out towards Felicity, The Arrow said, “I need your help recovering anything you can from this laptop.” 

Her eyes looking back and forth from the laptop to the hood quickly, Felicity did not move. “What?” she asked in disbelief. 

“This laptop is damaged and I need anything you can salvage from it.” He said slowly and sternly as though he were talking to a child, trying to get her to understand something as simple as tying a shoe. 

Her eyes squinted at him even more, wishing she could shoot lasers out of her eyes and into his not very well protected chest. She pictured him getting thrown through the wall of her office making him go away, she had a lot of work to do and she needed to get back to it, there were deadlines she needed to make. 

“That’s not a very nice way of asking someone to do you a favor.” She said mater-of-factly. “You didn’t even say please.” She added, crossing her arms in front of her. 

The Arrow took a big breath, starting to become impatient. He wanted her to take the laptop already and get to work so he could continue on his night time schedule. 

“Please.” He growled.

Felicity uncrossed her arms, biting the inside of her cheek, thinking. She did not want to help him; he was being rude by telling her what to do. She should kick him out of her office right now, tell him to never sneak into her office again but then again a piece of tech needed her help. She couldn’t stand to see something so dear to her in so much pain. She wanted to help it. Needed to help it. So with that thought, she stretched her arm out, keeping her feet planted and took the laptop from his outstretched arm. She eyed the piece of plastic, running her hands over the top delicately, her lips forming a frown at the holes that decorated it.

“What did you do to it?” she asked him, the sorrow she was feeling for the object coming though her voice.

He took a small step towards his bow. His gloved thumb and finger rubbing together now that he wasn’t hold anything thing.

“Nothing.” He said shortly, picking up his bow now. 

Felicity flipped the laptop over in her hands, looking at him curiously. 

“So you just expect me to help you recover information on what I expect is a stolen computer, get involved in something that I’m 99 percent sure will end up being illegal, with none of my questions being answered?” She asked him, clutching the laptop to her chest, and looked at him with one eyebrow raised.

The Arrow remained silent and did not move he only stared at her, his thumb still rubbing his finger. He looked from her to the window, the street light shining below, then to the laptop.

“OK.” Felicity said in a high pitched voice. She turned around towards her desk and set the laptop down. “I’ll do it. You can find a new letter opener at Barnes and Noble by the table where all the Harry Potter stuff is. Can’t miss it.” Turning back around, she saw that he had stilled in mid step on his way towards the door of her office.

“I’ll need it soon.” He said and without another word he walked out of the room leaving Felicity confused.

“You’re welcome!” She yelled after him but she doubted he heard her or maybe chose to ignore her.  
* * *  
An hour later and after walking up five floors, Felicity arrived home with a greasy bag of Big Belly burger, a milkshake, a tote bag filled to its maximum capacity with papers from work, her purse, and the intriguing laptop tucked under her arm. After some careful milkshake maneuvering, she was finally able to get her key in the lock and enter her apartment. Dropping the bag of Big Belly Burger, she walked and kicked the bag over to the living room where she dropped all her belongings onto the coffee table. 

Being the head of a department in a multi-million dollar conglomerate, she had enough to spend on a gated two bedroom apartment complex that came with its own gym for the tenants along with her own washer and dryer in her apartment, and updated appliances which was a win in her book. When she decided to move herself over to Starling City, finding the perfect place was very important to her along with finding somewhere safe to settle down, so when he had found this place and even gave his ever annoying approval of it, she decided on here with no argument. 

Her kitchen was mostly for the looks, a place to keep her coffee maker and to store all of her left overs. She didn’t like cooking nor was very good at it. Mrs. Brown had tried to teach her on many occasions but she would somehow burn Mac and Cheese, or there would be an explosion of flour when she tried to make cookies so she avoided cooking at all cost except for her cereal. The spare room used as a means of storage and work space with many parts scattered about the room. On one of the few desks she had set up, sat the very first computer she had ever made with Mr. Brown. Although she rarely used it anymore, it was still able to turn on an access the internet. Next to it sat a picture of the three of them along with a few trinkets and mementos from her years with them.

Felicity also like to make sure her place was clean which was easy as she spent most of her time at work and wasn’t able to get her place messy. Everything had its spot; the coffee table lined up in the middle of the rug, the books on the bookshelf perfected over and over again until she found the right order, and the pillows on the bed and couch fluffed and set in their places. 

Felicity’s apartment was clean, except for the cat hair. Oh the cat hair. Felicity had always lived with someone her entire life. She lived with her mom when she was young, her college roommate, that boyfriend she tries not to think about, and him. She was a bit nervous to live on her own for the first time, which she thought was silly, “Get it together Smoak. You are a grown women. You can do this.” She would say to herself when her heart started beating faster whenever she thought about living on her own.  
After about a week of living on her own in a new city, Felicity was walking around downtown doing some retail therapy after she convinced herself she needed a new wardrobe, when she walked past a sorta creepy entrance to an ally and heard a very soft mew. Upon further investigation, she had found a small orange tabby cat that was very skinny, had fleas and seemed to be in his last days of life with no sign of a mother.

She had wrapped him up in the purple jacked she had been wearing and took him to the closest veterinarian she could find where they told her he did not have much longer to live. A while after spending some time at the vet recovering, she was able to bring him home. 

She named him Sherlock for no reason other than the act that she was a big fan of the books and TV show. Sherlock was very lazy when he realized how good his life was not that he was off the street. His favorite spot was on the couch or on the window sill where the sunlight shone through. She had tried opening the window so he could go out onto the fire escape and lay in the sun to people watch but he would rather stay inside than go outside, she doesn’t blame him on that. They have gotten along great and enjoyed watching movies together, cuddling up on the couch and Felicity talked about her day to him. She liked to embrace the cat lady stereotype and thought she would get more with the way her love life goes. 

“Cat hair be damned.” She told him one night after watching him lay on her lap. “I can deal with it.”

Felicity bit into her burger and stared at the laptop sitting atop the table. She wondered who’s it really was and what had happened to make it seem they needed to use it as a shield. Taking a drink of her strawberry milkshake, she picked it up in her hands and examined it. The bullet holes went through the screen of the computer and didn’t seem to hit the bottom part where the keyboard was. 

“How?” she asked herself. “This is one tough motherfracker.” 

Opening up the inside of the laptop, she took out the motherboard and saw that it was still intact. 

“I can work with this.” She told Sherlock getting up from the couch and going into her work room where her desktop computer was set up near the one she made with Mr. Brown. 

Carefully taking the green board out of the computer, she was able to plug it into her computer. After a minute of retrieving the data, she instantly saw whose it was, Warren Patel. At first she wasn’t sure why The Arrow would have a computer that belonged to a successful business man who owned his own company, Patel Industries. But upon further inspection she found many sketchy things; blue prints to Unidac Industries, emails to females that where very inappropriate for a work e-mail, pictures she definitely did not need to see, a list of names that she recognized to be individuals who wanted to buy Unidac Industries, information that closely resembles espionage, and –

She sat back in her seat, blowing out a breath. “Frack.”


	4. Chapter 4

It has been a week since The Arrow came to see Felicity in her office and she wasn’t sure how to get in contact with him to share the information she had found from the laptop. She figured she could go to Oliver Queen himself but he has also been missing in action for the past week and didn’t know when he would be back. Not that she would go to the Queen himself as he did not know she knew his secret and obviously did not want her to know, so she continued to pretend she was in the dark like the rest of the city. But the information she found was time sensitive and needed to tell him as soon as she could. She couldn’t go to John Diggle, Oliver’s right hand man, he was more than likely with him as they seemed to be attached at the hip and Mr. Diggle was The Arrow’s partner, Spartan, so he was definitely with The Arrow doing what they do. Arsenal, the one in red, was more than likely to be with them too, not that she kept tabs on all these men but again, this was time sensitive information and she didn’t really feel like going to Verdant just to see if Roy Harper was working.

“Honestly these men are horrible at concealing their identity.” Felicity told Sherlock one evening looking through the laptop again. It wasn’t that she purposely did research to find out who Three Musketeers are, the only reason she knew was because of the fact that they were obvious about it. Oliver Queen comes back from an ‘island’ and the man in green suddenly shows up, he was even put on house arrest for god’s sake and still people believed him when he said he wasn’t him. The Arrow saves Roy Harper and then there is a new apprentice that favors the color red. It’s pretty obvious; people just don’t know how to look.

She wasn’t sure why she didn’t tell him she knew who he was. Maybe so he wouldn’t freak out? She pretended not to know because he didn’t want her to know who he was? That was probably it. She wasn’t afraid of him that was for sure. She did not think he would harm her if he did find out she knew. She kept his secret no matter how bad he was at keeping it himself. 

So here she was a week later in the same spot as the first time The Arrow came sneaking into her office. It was another late night working on the merger when Felicity had just come back from the copier room with stacks of paper, signing a song under her breath. 

“Love me, love me, say that you love me.” 

“Did you find anything on the computer?” said a gruff voice behind Felicity.

“Ahh!” Felicity shrieked, tossing the stacks of paper in the air. “Ugh!” she added throwing her head back in annoyance at seeing the papers scattered around the floor around her. 

She bent down and started picking up the papers. “Don’t you ever knock?” she asked throwing a dirty look over her shoulder toward the gruff voice. 

When she was done picking up the papers, she stacked them haphazardly onto her desk and rounded on The Arrow. “You have got to stop doing that! It’s no wonder people always shoot at you! Always sneaking behind them in the dark! Oh look at me I’m all mysterious and green and shoot people with arrows!” She yelled at him while making a marching gesture with her arms. 

The Arrow remained still and silent waiting for the small blonde to finish her rant. While the blonde herself had turned back around and went to straighten up all the papers, taking her time. When she was done, he had turned back around to face the silent man. She noticed his bow was resting against the flowery chair again, a few feet away from him while he stood in the dark corner, his hands twitching yet again. She also noticed how he always looked ready to run away at a moment’s notice. He probably had to do that a lot. 

“It’s about time you showed your face.” Felicity paused for a second, “Oh hood rather. I recovered what was on the laptop a week ago. I have been carrying around Warren Patel’s laptop for a week! Warren Patel! Why do you have his laptop? Never mind, I know why, obviously. And where have you been? Do you really think it would take me a week to uncover information? Have you no faith in my abilities?” 

“Warren Patel?” He asked as though she hadn’t just scolded him. 

Sighing, Felicity grabbed her tablet and brought up the information she had saved to it and turned it in her hand so the Arrow could see. 

“Warren Patel, he owns Patel Industries and is currently in process of closing on buying Unidac Industries.” Sighing, she dragged her finger across the screen so a new page showed what looked like emails. “Last year he hired a hit man to take care of anyone who was interested in buying Unidac, including Walter Steele, fortunately for Mr. Steel, he dropped out of the bidding before Patel could hire this man to ya know.” Felicity dragged a finger across the front of her neck.

The Arrow had stayed stony silent as ever, waiting for Felicity to continue on with what she had found. After a minuet of awkward silence on Felicity’s part, she clicked her tongue and faced the tablet back to her to scroll through the e-mails. “So you could take the e-mails as proof and put Patel away for a long time probably. Which would be pretty cool as I met the guy once at some function and he was a total creep.” 

The Arrow seemed to consider this for a moment before asking, “what about the guy he hired?”

Setting the tablet down carefully on her desk, Felicity turned back around to face The Arrow and clasped her hands together, her voice sounding somber. “Floyd Lawton, otherwise known as Deadshot. He can hit a squirrel through the eye from about, well a really long way away. It’s pretty impressive honestly. He’ll work for anyone who gives him the highest price for his work.” 

Seeming to consider this new information that Felicity had told him, he asked, “Do you know who Floyd Lawton’s next target is?”

Hesitantly, Felicity picked up a manila folder from her desk and reached her hand out to him. “James Holder. He is a business man here in Starling City and he is also in the running to buy Unidac. He also sells defective smoke detectors to those in The Galdes, which Patel doesn’t really care about the smoke detectors and more about the Unidac part but it’s still kinds sucky for those in The Glades, many fires and many deaths. That folder has all the information to put Patel away for a really long time along with a CD that also has Patel himself talking about Floyd’s work.”

The Arrow had taken the folder from Felicity and was looking through it while she talked. “Thank you.” With that he grabbed his bow and walked out of the room, folder still in hand. 

“A man of many words.” Felicity said to herself, walking back to the other side of her desk and sitting down. She went to grab some papers to do some more work when something glimmered in the corner of her eye. Looking over she saw a mini sword, the size of a letter opener, resting horizontally on the stand her previous one was lying on. Felicity smiled to herself and pulled the stack of papers towards her. 

* * *

The Arrow stood atop a rooftop in the middle of the night. The night was quiet, a light breeze blowing onto his ace under hid hood. He could hear a pair of cats fighting in the distance, music blaring from an approaching car. The same car driving right through the stop sign below him, no doubt the driver thinking there was no one to pay attention to them. In the apartment across the street from him, he could see a couple with their curtains open, bare flesh moving against each other as their bodies moved in a rhythmic way. He turned his back to the window across the street, the rocks on the roof crunching under his boots as he looked at the sky. 

One thing he actually missed about the island was the stars. Every night he would look up and see the millions of starts that splattered the darkened sky above him, always able to find the big dipper. It had relaxed him when his life had taken a turn for the worse, wishing he was back home, pretending everything was ok and he would wake up in his bed at the mansion where he would hear his sister Thea complaining about school and his mom scolding her saying he needed an education. Here in Starling City the stars were never seen, light pollution causing the sky to be too bright to see them. He only saw the moon now which was not able to relax him, only reminding him that it was a new month, a new problem. 

Turning his head away from the sky, he walked to the edge of the building and jumped onto the fire escape, landing with little noise and continuing down two more flights of stairs until he arrived at the correct window. Testing to see if the window was unlocked, he opened it all the way and quietly snuck into the room. 

The room was still and dark. Taking a few steps into the apartment, Oliver looked around and saw the place was clean. The books on the bookshelf in an order that looked like a lot of thought was put into it, a few computer parts scattered around the coffee table along with an empty glass of wine. Oliver walked over to the bookshelf and picked up a book, it looked to be very used and worn as though it has been read hundreds of times. 

Oliver heard a noise behind him and dropped the book onto the bookshelf and spun around, his arm reaching behind him for an arrow. He didn’t see anything but when he heard the noise again and looked down and saw an orange cat looking up at him, a toy lying in front of him as through ready to play fetch with him, its mouth opened and meows started coming out. 

Walking past the cat, he walked into the kitchen and saw there were no dishes in the sink, the coffee maker ready to go in the morning before the owner of it wake up and be able to smell coffee upon awaking. He walked to the bathroom, a purple toothbrush stood up on the counter, different shades of red and pink lipsticks scattered the room. He walked to the end of the hallway to the last door and silently opened it, he saw a figure under a blanket, blond hair peeking out from under, sprayed across the pillow. The figure was breathing deeply and slowly, peaceful and unaware that he was standing in the doorway. A picture frame stood on the nightstand next to the bed, it was her and a man with their arms wrapped around each other and smiling. The man had dark, short hair and a muscular build under what looked like a police uniform and a boyish grin. He wondered who this man was. He was not someone he recognized from the Starling City Police Department and he couldn’t see the name-tag on him.

Taking his quiver off his back, Oliver sat himself on the floor, his back leaning against the side of the bed, careful not to move it, he tilted his head back and looked towards the ceiling and closed his eyes, a silent sigh coming out between his lips.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your comments! I love to read them and see what you guys have said! I also love the guesses about the man in the picture.   
> This chapter does not have a lot of dialog and is not my favorite but I felt as though I needed something else before the next chapter. So I am sorry if its a little boring!

Felicity woke with a start, sitting upright so fast, her head swam a bit, and her heart beating fast and hard in her chest to the point of feeling it pulse in her ears. She hastily grabbed her glasses off the nightstand and looked at the clock; it read 4:27 AM. Her alarm wouldn’t go off for another few hours. She wasn’t sure why she had woken up so abruptly, she didn’t have a nightmare, although nightmares were no stranger to her so it wouldn’t be a surprise if there had been a bad dream she couldn’t remember. But something felt off, she could feel goosebumps creeping up her arms.

Slowly peeling the blanket off her legs, she stood up, her bare feet sinking into the carpet. Trying to get her heavy breathing under control, Felicity walked on tip toes to her door and cracked it open an inch to peek out into her dark apartment. She didn’t hear anything or see any shadow of someone she thought might be there. She hesitated before quietly swinging the door all the way open and stepping into the hallway. Again, she did not hear anything out of the ordinary, just her heat blowing through the vents on the cold December night. 

When she got to the living room, she had turned on all the lights she came in contact with. Sherlock was curled up and sleeping on the couch with his favorite mouse shaped toy lying next to him. Everything seemed to be in its place, her coffee maker ready to brew in a few short hours, the wine glass she had left on the coffee table still sitting in its place. She even went so far as to pull the curtain to her shower back to make sure no one was hiding behind it and looking in the drawers of her dresser. 

Her front door was still dead bolted shut and seemed to be in perfect shape. Felicity went to the window that lead to the fire escape and saw she had left the window unlocked yet again. She liked to keep that window open during the nicer days to let some fresh air into the house and see if Sherlock would want to go outside, but he never did. Opening the window, a cold breeze blew across her face causing her to shiver a bit in her pajama tank top that said ‘I woke up like this’ and her shorts. 

When she leaned out of the window, there was nothing to see but cars driving by on the street below her, a light was on in the apartment across the street and she knew from past experiences after accidently seeing that couple, that she knew exactly what they were up to.   
Do they ever sleep? Felicity thought to herself. They have to get tired sometimes. Or hungry. 

She looked all around, trying to see if anything was out of the ordinary. Looking up towards the roof, she saw only more stairs, the same with looking down. Nothing. 

Bringing her torso back inside, Felicity made sure to shut the window and lock it, even testing to see if she could pry it open. It didn’t move. Good. 

Making sure to give Sherlock the Cat a few pets before heading back to her bed, she said to herself, “Must be going crazy. Knew I should have installed that security system when I moved in.”

She pulled the blanket up to her chin and tried to warm up from the cold. It took her a while to fall back asleep but when she did, she tossed and turned for the rest of the time, dreaming about green leather and black capes. When her phone went off a few hours later, she had a strong urge to throw it against the wall. 

Felicity groaned and threw the blankets off of her. She turned the bedside lamp on; it was 6:30 in the morning but still dark outside. Although Felicity was used to the dark, she still preferred it to be light outside when she woke up, otherwise it was hard to get herself out of bed. 

Rubbing her eyes, she put her glasses back on and looked around the room. Everything still seemed normal. Getting up, she walked to the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee and smelled the rich aroma of what she claims is her favorite bean, instantly waking her up. Felicity went to check the window to the fire escape again and found that it was still locked, which gave her a calming feeling. 

She got Sherlock’s breakfast ready in the kitchen and set it down on the floor. “You are going to have to get up sometime today.” She told him as he only yawned and laid his head back down, looking like he was not going to get up anytime soon. Shaking her head at the lazy cat, she grabbed her yoga mat and rolled it out on the floor. 

Growing up, Felicity was not one to engage in physical activity, but ever since she lived in Gotham, where her life was stressful and crazy, she had started working out a lot more, boxing, jiu-jitsu, yoga, she tried everything, and she learned she loved it. She loved the way she felt - strong, powerful, and overall good about herself for the first time in a long time. Although she does not train as much anymore, she still does her yoga, which for her, is her meditation and with the merger and the fact that she was abruptly awoken last night for reasons she still can’t explain, she needed to calm down. 

Sitting down and crossing her legs, Felicity worked on her breathing, trying to clear her mind, but since she couldn’t do that, her mind started to wander. The merger was coming up, although she had been working really hard on it, in just a few weeks’ time, the Board form Wayne Enterprises would be coming to Starling City to discuss the logistics, including Bruce Wayne himself. She was under a lot of pressure for things to go well, she wanted to help people keep their jobs at Queen Consolidated – including her own job, and impress those high in the company. Bruce Wayne and Lucius Fox had written her an amazing recommendation letter when she applied for the job at Queen Consolidated and if things didn’t go well, she didn’t want to disappoint them along with Walter Steel. She also didn’t want to put Wayne Enterprises under fire if it didn’t work out. 

Moving to a new position, Felicity also thought of the reason why she had woken up in the middle of the night, frantic like. It made her heart race when she thought of it and her breathing speed up a bit. She shook her head. She was supposed to be controlling her breathing. It made her uneasy not knowing what had happened and that bothered her. 

Felicity was smart and knowing information is made her get through her time in Gotham, so this mystery was the top on her list of things to figure out. She knew herself well, and if her body reacted this way, well it couldn’t be good. 

Since it was the weekend, Felicity decided to run some errands and clean her apartment and not worry about anything else but her ice cream melting on the way back from the store. She had been so busy lately; she didn’t have any time to get real food she could make at home. Her diet had consisted of take-out, Big Belly Burger, coffee and vending machine food that was on her floor at work so a good healthy meal cooked at home was a must for the day, with the exception of the ice cream and a new bottle of wine. 

So later that night, Felicity had thrown some chicken in a dish with all different kinds of vegetables, pretending she was Rachel Ray, “Now we are going to let it cook for some amount of time.” She said in a raspy voice, and set the dish in the oven, swearing a bit when she burned herself and set a timer. 

She picked up her small side salad and went to her living room to watch some reruns of The Office. The coffee table was cluttered with the day’s activities, including some papers and a book she had been reading that she carried around with her in case she got the time to read bit, something that rarely happened. 

Putting the papers aside so she wouldn’t get any food on them, she picked up the book and went to set it on her bookshelf when she froze in her tracks. There, on the bookshelf, was a book lying haphazardly across the top of the other books. Her face turned red and her heart rate sped up again. She hesitated before stepping up to the bookshelf and picked up the book, it was Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – her favorite book, the book that the Brown’s had giving her on her seventh birthday. It wasn’t her that put the book laying on top like that, she always made sure to put her books away in an organized manner. Sherlock would not have been able to climb up the shelves to her eye level and lift up the book and lay it down, which means someone was in her apartment. She had a hunch on who it might be, she just hoped more than anything she is right.

***

The next day, Oliver Queen was standing in his office at the floor to ceiling windows, staring at nothing, his mind wandering. His mother was acquitted on all counts and he still can’t seem to figure out how that happened. By all legal rights, Moria Queen should have been sentenced to prison for a long time. He was happy that she wasn’t sentenced as Thea has been having a lot of trouble after finding out her mother was involved in something so horrendous. Thea also had the not so perfect idea to throw the infamous Christmas party at the Queen mansion. He wasn’t sure how the turnout would be now that his mom was very hated in the city but he hoped it went well, normalcy would be good for Thea. 

With everything that happened with his mom, Queen Consolidated was going down the toilet. Isobel Rochev was the CFO and she got on his nerves every single day trying to tell him how to run his family company. He was trying his hardest to keep it afloat but when his priorities where on his night time activities, it was easy to get side tracked. 

He dropped Warren Patel off at the police station with the evidence from Felicity Smoak. His intention was not for Patel but one more person put away that was a corrupt businessman, was just a bonus. His main focus was on Floyd Lawton and trying to find him for Dig. They had been trying to find him for a while now but A.R.G.U.S. had set up a fake job and they were able to put him in their custody. 

John wasn’t sure how he felt about the whole ordeal now that Deadshot was finally put away after killing his brother. He wasn’t able to get him himself and the fact that a secret organization that his girlfriend, Lyla, worked for now held him was conflicting. 

Now Vertigo was making its way back to the city and he couldn’t figure out how it was getting distributed. The Count had broken out of prison when the earthquake had occurred, the building had crumbled under the shaking and now he was at large again with his dangerous drug. 

The merger was coming up just after the new year and that was another thing that had him nervous. Wayne would be coming here along with The Board of Wayne Enterprises, and he wasn’t particularly excited for Wayne to come here, he wasn’t sure what his beef was with the other guy but they couldn’t seem to get along. At the same time he wanted to make sure his family’s company stayed in their hands and didn’t go to someone else. His family may be messed up but he still cared about his father’s legacies and he hoped the merger would save it. He had all his trust in Felicity Smoak, knowing she would do the right thing for the company and employees who lost their job at Merlyn Global. 

He thought of Felicity Smoak. He wasn’t sure why he snuck into her apartment last night but when he got there, he was relaxed and he felt at peace for the first time in a long time. She was interesting to him. She had agreed to help him without a second thought and didn’t seem to blink when he handed her a laptop riddled with bullet holes. 

Oliver heard the clicking of heels drawing closer to his office and upon turning around it was Ms. Smoak. Today she was in a grey dress with the color pink on the sides, her hair in its signature pony tail. Her glasses were slipping down her nose as she typed away on her tablet. Her focus was broken when Jeremy greeted her and told her to come right into the office. She smiled at Jeremy and thanked him, opening the glass door.

“Hello Mr. Queen.” She greeted him while smiling. 

Mr. Queen. That’s what she always called him and he hated it. He knew she was being a professional and polite but still, he hated it. 

She had taken a seat on one of the leather couches facing the window and continued to look at her tablet, crossing her ankles. He realized Isobel was late, that was something new. She was anal about him always being late for meeting and yet, she wasn’t here. 

“Ms. Smoak, how are you?” He moved away from the window and took a seat on the opposite leather couch from Felicity, trying to look comfortable in his tight suit. 

Her fingers hovered over the screen, she looked at him over her glasses for a moment before replying, “I’m doing well Mr. Queen. How are you?”

He wondered if he knew he was in her apartment last night. Not him as in Oliver Queen but him as in the Arrow. He made sure to cover his tracks and make it like he was never there. He left the window unlock when he left although he didn’t like that she kept it unlocked to begin with. He was good at sneaking in and out of places, so he was more than certain she wasn’t aware of what happened. 

“I’m well thank you.” There was an awkward silence while she focused on the screen in front of her, leaving him to look around the room. He wanted to keep her talking, so he asked, “Do you have any plans for Christmas? My family is having their annual Christmas Eve party. Will you be attending?” He thought he sounded lame, asking a girl if he will see her at a party like he was back in high school. 

“I’ll be lighting my menorah for Christmas. But no I will not be attending your Christmas party. I’m actually going to visit some friends in Gotham over the holiday.” 

“Oh.” Oliver said, disappointed. He was hoping he would see her outside of work where she would hopefully not call him Mr. Queen. 

“So-“ Oliver had started to say before the sneering voice of Isobel Rochev came striding into the office, her head held high. 

“Well let’s get started shall we? We only have a few weeks to make sure this all goes well and the company doesn’t burn into the ground.” Isobel sat next to Oliver; she smelled of hairspray and some kind of perfume that his grandma used to wear. Oliver scooted away from her an inch and looked at Felicity, she rolled her eyes and bit her lip looking like she was trying to not say something rude.

“Don’t worry Ms. Rochev. Everything is ready to go.” Felicity said in an all too sweet voice, seeming to put emphasis on Ms. He wondered what that was about. 

This was going to be a fun meeting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would also like to add that I do not have a regular schedule. I do not post a new chapter on the same days every week or anything like that. I am in school (again. Ugh), I work a lot (more ugh), and I run a household (there's always cleaning to be done! ugh) So please bare with me if a new chapter doesn't come out for a while!


	6. Your Body Craves It

Felicity walked to her car in the parking garage of Queen Consolidated a few days later. It was late at night and all of the parking spots were empty as everyone had gone home hours ago. The emptiness of the garage made the clicking of her heels echo loudly in her ears as she searched her purse for her keys. She had stayed late working on the ever growing stacks of paper work for the merger. It seemed to be taking over her life but she didn’t mind. She like to keep busy and focus her mind on something important and she figured if everything went well, it would push her further in her career. Being head of Applied Sciences is rewarding but she had plans for her future. She wanted to have her own business and come out with her own tech; she wanted her own name on her work.

 

            After finding the book not in its place at her apartment, she thought it had to be the Arrow. She had to believe it was The Arrow and nobody else. He had snuck into her apartment while she slept and looked at her things. It was a wonder why he would do something like that. Hopefully he wasn’t watching her sleep, which would be creepy. When she saw Oliver Queen the next day, he didn’t give anything away. He pretended he didn’t sneak into her apartment and she pretended she was in the dark about anyone being in her home.

 

            Still digging in her purse for her keys, Felicity heard movement behind her. Turning around, she saw it was him, The Arrow. Of course, she thought.

 

            “You really need to stop doing that.” She said and walked the few more feet to her Mini Cooper, finally finding her keys and unlocking her car. “What if I carried a gun in my purse or something? Huh? I could get spooked and accidently shoot you!”

 

            The Arrow followed her the few step to her car, keeping a comfortable distance. He gripped his bow tighter in his hand and glanced around the parking garage. “Do you have a gun?” He asked, looking back at Felicity, his voice deep.

 

            Felicity hesitated and threw her purse and work bag over to the passenger seat in her car. “No, of course not. Do I look like the types of person to carry a gun with me? Although maybe I should if I’m going to have men in green leather popping up wherever I am.” Felicity bit her lip before asking, “So what can I do for you today?”

 

            “Do you remember the drug Vertigo? It is making a comeback in the city but its disguised as the flu. One of my partners had it in his system and he is not the type of person to take drugs. It seems to be making its way around again but worse. People without history of drug use are having withdrawal of it. I need you to see if you can find out where its coming from. I want to make sure the guy who is the cause of it all is put away.” His voice got deeper on the last part.

 

            Felicity heard on the news it was coming back into the city. People had been admitted to the hospital with claims of feeling as though they had the flu but found it was actually withdrawal from the strong drug. Felicity could tell this Vertigo business bothered him. One of his partners was having withdrawal from Vertigo; she assumed it was John Diggle. He hadn’t been seen for the past few days around Queen Consolidated and when she asked Oliver Queen about it, he claimed he was sick with the flu.  

 

            It was also known in Starling City that Thea Queen had crashed her new car last year after taking a hit of Vertigo as it was all over the news.

 

            So for the Green Arrow, it was personal.

 

            “The Count, he is the maker of the drug. He escaped from Iron Heights during the Undertaking and he changed the formula. There doesn’t seem anyway to cure the addiction.”

 

            Felicity watched him as he tilted his head slightly to the side, thinking he might be listening to whoever was talking in his ear, his thumb rubbing against his forefinger on his right hand.

 

            “Maybe I should add personal internet researcher for the Green Arrow in my job title. But sure, why not?” She turned around to get into her car before adding, “I’ll be leaving town for a few days so I won’t be able to be an accomplice to your activities. So try not to need me ok?”

 

            He brought his and to his face and although it was hard to see under the hood, she could tell he rubbed his eyes and though briefly if he ever got any sleep.

 

            “Thank you.” His voice sounded tired. Reaching out with the same hand he rubbed his eyes with, he shook Felicity’s hand before walking away.

 

            Felicity looked down at her hand and rubbed her fingers together. There was a green sticky solution on her fingers.

 

“Grease paint?”

 * * *

The next day, before work, Felicity cleaned the take out containers she picked up the night before. She worked long hours into the early morning in order to find the Vertigo that was taking over the city and Chinese food had always fueled her along with coffee. Even in college, she lived off take-out and coffee so she could get her homework done along with her extra-curricular activities with her friends, The Hacktivist.

 

            “Talk about the freshmen 15.” She would say after eating her beef and broccoli for the fifth time that week, trying to figure out a code she was working on with Cooper.

 

            After an entire container of fried rice and kung pao chicken, she had found where the drug was coming from. The only thing was, trying to tell The Arrow what she had found was a mystery. She was leaving tomorrow for Gotham in order to see her friends for the holidays and she needed to tell The Arrow soon. Even though he was the one to always come to her, she needed to find a way to tell him. She couldn’t very well go up to Oliver Queen during work and tell him what she found, and then he would know she knew who he was.

 

            She hadn’t reveled she knew who he was because he obviously wanted to keep it a secret. If he wanted her to know, he would have told her and he hasn’t, so she continued to pretended to not know. Although she had to roll his eyes at him often, he made it hard to pretend to be oblivious. The lies, the tardiness for literally any event, meeting he needed to attend, the fact that he was even put on house arrest due to the fact that the police though he was the Arrow, made it obvious. She wondered how more people didn’t know this fact.

 

            So here she was worried about the drug that was making its way through the city with no way to tell the man who could do anything about it. She had thought about going to check it out herself but thought against that, it wouldn’t help anyone if she were to go find this Count guy.

 

            Arriving at work, she learned the Oliver Queen wouldn’t be showing up to work for the day. She wondered what he was up to now, he never seemed to catch a break.

 

            She went through the day constantly looking at the clock, the time seemed to go too fast. She was sitting at her desk, consistently clicking her pen on her papers and shaking her leg up and down to the point where her assistant Andie came in to ask her if she was ok.

 

            “Felicity? Is everything ok?” She peaked her head around the door frame. She noticed Felicity has been on edge all day and the clicking of her pen was staring to get on her nerves.

 

            “What? Oh yeah, I’m fine. Uh, I’m just anxious for the day to be over. I’m leaving for Gotham tomorrow and I’m just excited I guess.”

 

            It wasn’t a total lie. She was leaving to go to Gotham tomorrow and she was excited to be able to see her friends again but she was on edge to get the information to Oliver or should she say The Arrow without walking straight into their lair which more than likely wouldn’t go over well.

 

            Later that night, Felicity was, unsurprising, still at work. She wanted to make sure everything would be in line for the next few days and she thought that maybe he would show up while she was still at work, like he always did, so she could finally tell him where the Vertigo was coming from.

 

            Felicity was signing her name on some documents when the lights outside of her office turned off, her heart rate went up. She should be used to it by now, getting snuck up on in the night but she still worried it would be someone else and not the man in green leather. The man she worried it might be was in prison, there was no way he was coming for her, that’s what she had to keep telling herself to keep herself sane.

 

            A man walked through the open door and for a second her stomach dropped, it was not the Arrow. This person was shorter and smaller in stature and not in green but in red. She knew this man, the other partner of the Arrow, the apprentice, Arsenal, Roy Harper.

 

            Again, these men are bad at hiding their identity, Felicity thought. Roy Harper was saved by the Arrow last year; she had seen him around Queen Consolidated talking with Oliver Queen and John Diggle. Maybe they shouldn’t be talking about their night time activities at work. He was also dating Thea Queen and wore that awful red hoodie all the time. Every time she saw him in passing, he was always wearing the red hoodie. She wondered if he had multiple hoodies or just washed the same one all the time. If he only had the one, she hoped he washed it regularly, otherwise, ew.

 

            “The prodigal son returns. Well not that you are returning here or have behaved in a crazy way. Or maybe you have? But that’s not any of my business. Although the fact that you are in my office is kinda my business. So what can I do for the man in red?” Felicity spun around in her chair. “Find the baddie of the week? Build an explosive?” She stopped suddenly in her chair facing him. “Which I definitely do not know how to do.”

 

            Arsenal walked further into the office and glanced around. Did these men actually think that she would hide some kind of booby trap in her office? It wasn’t like she was luring them here. They are the ones that keep showing up needing her expertise.

 

            “The Green Arrow asked me to come here and see what kind of information you got on The Count.” She had never heard him speak before in his regular voice but his voice was obviously modulated to a deep, grumbly sound.

 

            “Right, of course. And is The Green Arrow ok?”

 

            “He’s out of commission for the night.”

 

            “Hopefully he didn’t get his flu shot in one of those vans that’s giving out free shots. Talk about a bad trip. Not that I do drugs, so I don’t know what it’s like to take drugs. But I did eat a pot brownie once in college. By accident. Never again. Drugs are bad. But I guess medical marijuana can be good. So drugs are good?”

 

            Arsenal continues to look at her. She could see his shoulders moving slightly in what looked like laughing.

 

            “Vans?”

 

            “Yes.” Felicity grabbed her tablet to show him charts which he probably didn’t understand without an explanation and walked over to him. “At first I looked to see if the infected had anything in common. I got the names from hacking into the hospital. For someone who is all about doctor patient confidentiality, it is way too easy to get patient information. But anyway, They had nothing in common, a lawyer, an accountant, a janitor. Nothing. But alas! Their employment! These flu shot vans are giving free flu vaccines on a specific route of people in the higher, more elite businesses. Such as Queen Consolidated.”

 

            Felicity was planning on getting her flu shot but she had been putting it off for a while now. She knew that they put part of the flu virus into the vaccines themselves and then shot a needle into you! She knew she was being paranoid, that’s how they did it. It made sense, but it still freaked her out. She also wasn’t a big fan of needles and when she learned that the vertigo was in the ‘flu shots’, boy was she glad about her paranoia. 

 

            “Flu shots.” Arsenal repeated. No doubt thinking of his partner, John. He must have gotten his flu shot the other day when the van swung by Queen Consolidated.

 

            Just then, an alert sounded on her cell phone, a loud, menacing beeping, she was momentarily reminded of the Purge, then her tablet went off and her computer.

 

            THIS IS A CITY WIDE BROADCAST

 

            Felicity ran to her computer, Arsenal following close behind and standing behind her as they both watched the screen.

 

            Some guy was wearing a pea coat with the collar turned up; his hairs spiked up but limp. Felicity though he looked like an evil sparkly vampire. He was holding a video camera and facing himself then turned it to another man. Someone in a business suit, he looked familiar but she couldn’t quite figure out who he was. He looked to be in pain, and afraid, sweat dripped down his forehead.

 

            The Count, she assumed, had a sly voice with a British accent, someone who would definitely be the bad guy to the Arrow.

 

            “Hello Starling City! Most of you have noticed you are not feeling like yourselves. Kinda like Assistant District Attorney who worked on the Moria Queen trial. He wants the pain to end and I can do that, with Vertigo.” He held up a double syringe to the man’s neck.

 

            Felicity pulled up a system on her other computer monitor and typed away as fast as she could.

 

“It’s what your bodies crave. The solution. More Vertigo.”

 

            The assistant district attorney, Adam, she remembered, yelled in pain. He was having withdrawal from the drug.

 

            “Now say you want it, and I’ll give it to you.” The count said. “I can help the pain go away.”

 

            “Fine! I want it!” The assistant district attorney yelled.

 

            The Count plunged the needles into the man’s neck and Felicity had to look away.

 

            The camera was back on The Count’s face, he was smiling, “All you have to do is go to your neighborhood drug dealer and ask for the drug!” the camera pointed at Adam again then went dark.

 

            “Shit.” The man behind her said quietly the touched a spot on his chest. “Green Arrow, did you see that?”

 

            She couldn’t hear what was said on the other end but she knew he had. The broadcast went to every screen in the city, every home TV, every monitor, every business; there wasn’t one person who didn’t see it.

 

            “What do we do now?” he asked the man on the other end.

 

            Felicity, still typing away, interjected, “I’m tracking his location now but by the looks of it, he bounced it off the satellite, he could be anywhere.”

 

            “Green Arrow said he would want to stay local. He’s got to be in the city.”

 

            “I got it! Starling Municipal Records Department. It’s been abandoned for a few years.”

 

            Without another word, Arsenal ran out of the room.


	7. Rectangle Boxes

Felicity felt as though she were on a high. Not the Mile High Club or the time she ate the brownie like she mentioned to Arsenal moments before. No, this was an adrenaline high. Her pulse was racing, her breathing a bit heavier than normal. She missed this. She missed using her abilities to help these men save the cities they seemed to love so much. And, let’s be honest, she loved to hack.

            She was still standing at her desk looking into the eye of the assistant district attorney. She was momentarily glad she had her system on her work computer; she knew it would come in handy in this town one day. She had it hidden and blocked on her work computer so no one would be able to see it in the Queen Consolidated databases, and besides she was kind of in charge of all that anyway. The program she had helped her to see the refection in the eye of the attorney and see where they were. _Amateurs._

            She felt as though she could run home with the adrenaline still pumping through her veins but thought against that, she was still in heels after all and wouldn’t be able to get far. Felicity was fit and strong and a regular at the gym she attended, she weight lifted, ran on the treadmill, did Crossfit and her favorite, boxing, but even heels would be her down fall.

            The ladies who run in movies with heels on are kidding themselves. She’s tried it once and it resulted in a twisted ankle and a fat lip. So running home was out of the question.

            Quickly picking up her belongings, she headed down to the parking garage where her car was. The Green Arrow wouldn’t be coming to her this time and being the stalker he seemed to be. Hopefully they would get The Count and be able to put him away again. She had no doubt they would. Two with bows against one with a syringe, didn’t seem like it would be hard for them. She had only wished she was able to help stop the van from going around the city when she found out where the Vertigo was coming from. But vans don’t run off of computers and bowing up multiple vans didn’t seem like the way to go, so she couldn’t anything about that but luckily they were not on schedule to prowl the city that day looking for their next victims. Maybe the Arrow could blow up the vans.

            Felicity drove home a little faster then she normally would have and when she got home, she was still too antsy to pack so she decided to go down to the small gym in her apartment complex and run on the treadmill to help with this buzzing vibrating through her body.

            While running on the treadmill, she was watching the TV and with breaking news, a news station came on reporting that The Count was put in custody along with all the Vertigo from the vans not in custody of the police. _That was quick. It’s only been an hour._ The people who were administrating the drug were cut down the middle on who seemed to know it was Vertigo and who thought it was the actual flu shot. _That would be a fun case to work on._ She thought.

            When she got back up to her apartment, she started to finally pack for her trip. She would make a list of everything she need to pack way in advance but only pack last minute and she was leaving tomorrow morning. She made sure to get her evening dress, tablet, and her winter items; it was December in the Northeast part of the United States after all. She made sure to clean Sherlock’s litter box and give him enough food and water to last a few days, along with setting out some new toys she had bought for him so he wouldn’t get bored, even all he did was sleep.

            Although she wasn’t quite looking forward about going back to a place where there were bad memories, she was excited to see the people who made it a little bit better. She hadn’t seen her friends in a while. Her family. The people who made her feel loved and accepted. She had found where she belonged. But the Closter phobic feeling and bad memories made her run out of there when the first opportunity of a good job arrived. It would also be nice to have a break from work before the big merger finally happened and the amount of paper work would increase tenfold. She was especially excited to show her friend Richard what she had been working on for him. She hoped he would like it.

            Grabbing the two small rectangle boxes the drawer in her dresser, she double checked everything was still perfect and tied little bows on each one. Opening the now infamous window, she set them on outside ledge and wrote a short note to put next to them. She was sure he would find it.

***   

            The next day Oliver Queen went through his normal day at Queen Consolidated, avoiding Isobel Rochev as best as he could, signing his name over and over again, and dodging questions about his mother. Diggle was finally feeling better, not one hundred percent yet but better. Oliver insisted he stay at home and rest for another few days where Lyla would be there to help take care of him, even if the ex-marine acted tough and said he was better and didn’t need babying. Oliver and Lyla both rolled their eyes at him and still thought he should get rest, which he eventually agreed to with some persuading from Lyla with promises to get him his favorite candy. _Didn’t need babying, my ass._  

            He thought about how he and Roy were able to get The Count, put him away for good this time, and obtain all the Vertigo from the vans to make sure people were not injected with it anymore.

            Vans. The flu vaccines vans that were giving out free flu shots. Even he had to admit, it was pretty impressive. Without the help of Felicity, he doubted they would have figured it out that soon, if at all.

            Thinking of Felicity, he hadn’t seen her all day and wanted to talk to her, about anything. This thought came suddenly to him and made him pause in his tracks. He hasn’t wanted to talk to someone just to talk in what seems like forever. Nowadays he only talks to people when he has to.

            He called down to her direct phone line, trying to come up with an excuse to be calling when instead it rerouted to her assistant, Mandy?, he couldn’t remember her name ever.

            “Applied Sciences, Felicity Smoak’s office.” She sounded distracted and he could faintly hear her typing away.

            Oliver cleared his throat. “Uh, hi. Is Ms. Smoak there?”

            “No she will be out of the office for the next week. Is there anything I can help you with?”

            “No. Just my computer its – it’s not working. I was just hoping she could help me with it.” _Lame excuse Oliver._

A pause on the other end, then, “You can always call down to the IT department and they would be able to help you with your computer.”

            “Right. Of course. Should have thought about that before. Thank you.”

            Oliver hung up the phone fast. His computer wasn’t working? Really? That’s what he came up with? Not something about having a question about the merger? No. His computer wasn’t working, something anyone in the IT department could fix.

            He rubbed his face in his hands and sighed. He though she was leaving tomorrow but maybe she took off early. We wanted to thank her for her help with The Count and finding out where the Vertigo was coming from and her help tracking him down when Roy was with her. She was fast. Without her help they wouldn’t have gotten there in time. Adam, the attorney, wouldn’t have made it. A second dose of Vertigo in a few hour time period would have killed him.

            He also just wanted to see her.

            He wasn’t sure where this infatuation with her came from or why. She didn’t seem scared of him when he first came to her for her help, which confused him. He had no intention of scaring her or wanting to hurt her, but that is what people think when he comes into a room. Fear. That is what he wanted when he first started this escapade. To instill fear into the evils of Starling City so he could save this city.

            She knew he had killed last year but that didn’t seem to faze her. If anything, she was eager to help him. He constantly wondered why she so easy agreed to help him with no questions asked. As first he thought she might go to the police and turn him in but after following her and keeping tabs on Lance, he learned she never went to them. His curiosity of her got even stronger.

The notch in his breast plate where she had thrown a letter opener at him grounded his curiosity further. She had thrown a letter opener at him and it even stuck. That was skill to be that accurate with a letter opener and he constantly wondered where she learned that. It had taken him a long time to learn something like that on the island. He learned accuracy like that on the Island from Slade, and he worked for the Australian Secret Intelligence Service. Had she learned that from someone with a background in secret services too?

There was a small part of him that felt guilty about being so interested in her. Growing up, it was always said that he would marry Laurel. Both of their families would always joke about having a wedding when they were in their first decade of life. Him, Tommy and Laurel were always together every day. Laurel always telling on the boys when they did something they shouldn’t have.

The thought of marrying Laurel when he was a teenager made him run for the hills. Sure she was his first girlfriend and his on and off again girlfriend, but he himself, was never the perfect boyfriend. He didn’t want to may her, so he would see other girls, sleep with them and only call back when he wanted another night of fun. Always dragging his feet back to Laurel, afraid of a lifelong commitment. He liked being able to have any women he wanted and Laurel always was in the dark and if she did know something, she would easily forgive him.

When he came back from the island, her picture the only thing that made him fight to survive, he had a change of heart. He wanted to be with her. She had saved him and she didn’t even know. But finding out she was with Tommy was a punch to the gut.

They seemed to genially get along and like each other. At first it was hard to see his best friend and ex-girlfriend together but after seeing them together, it slowly became easier to accept it. 

During his time trying to come to terms with the whole Tommy and Laurel part of his life, he met Helena. After a few years of being on the island and after Shadow’s death, he had become lonely and Helena was crazy but someone to help keep his bed warm at night. He actually had liked McKenna, in what way he wasn’t sure, friendship or more, but he knew she was too good for him and didn’t deserve someone like him. So when she moved away, is only regret was that he didn’t treat her better in their short relationship.

So now here he was, thinking about a blond ponytail.

Later that night, Oliver was patrolling the city. There didn’t seem to be much going on, it was a slow night. Both Roy and Diggle had gone home a few hours ago to spend time with their lady loves. So Oliver was jumping from roof to roof making sure to keep an eye and ear on things going on in the city. He had even gone so far as to grab a kitten down from a rain gutter.

Oliver paused and looked out at the city lights and took a breath through his nose and realized where he was. He was standing, yet again, on the roof of Felicity’s apartment, his body seemingly on autopilot. Without realizing it, his body took him to her place. He didn’t know how he ended up here or why, but a sudden calming sensation washed over him and his shoulders sagged just the tiniest.

  She wasn’t at work which meant she could have left for the week already or she was sleeping as every normal person was right now. He decided to try her window anyway and found it was locked. Disappointment took over and the edges of his mouth went down. It seemed silly to be disappointed that a window was locked when he shouldn’t be sneaking into a women’s home anyway. _She must have left already._

He stepped away from the window and looked around. Maybe he should just go home and try to get some sleep. He saw on the ledge of the window two small rectangle boxes, one on top of the other with a bow on the corner of both. One was green and the other red and there was a small piece of paper tucked under the two boxes. He pulled the note out from under the boxes and read in a feminine handwriting:

_Greasepaint is overrated_

            He picked up the green box and took the lid off. Inside was an eye mask. It was light, it seemed durable and flexible. In the red box was another eye mask, this one red, it must be for Roy. She had gotten both him and Roy eye masks as a Christmas present. A smile came upon his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't tell you how many times I forget about Mckenna in the first season. I only remembered her right before I mentioned her in this chapter.  
> Also, I know there is not much dialog and interaction between the two love birds but I am still trying to establish the story. I am also trying to figure out how to write other characters into the story more but I am having trouble coming up on where to add them.  
> Still loving your comments!!! Keep 'em coming!!


	8. The Sparrow

“So you got this from where now?”

Oliver, Roy and John were all in the foundry under Verdant. Diggle was taking inventory of his guns and ammunition while making sure there were still spare blood bags in the drawers for Oliver. Oliver was sitting at a work table sharpening some new arrowheads he had made other day while Roy was sitting across from Oliver holding up his new, red eye mask to the light in the celling, Oliver’s own mask resting on the table a foot away from him. 

Making sure the arrowhead he was working on was sharp enough that if he poked his finger on the tip, it would bleed; he answered Roy, ducking his head further towards his project. 

“Uh, Felicity. Smoak. Felicity Smoak. You know, the one who has been helping us.” 

Roy quickly looked at Oliver, resting his arm that was holding the mask on the table. John’s head turned toward the two of them quickly. 

“You mean Blondie?” Roy asked. “She seems cool. Talks a lot though.” He paused for a beat, “Like a lot.”

John had walked over to them a stood at the end of the table, his arms crossed. “Oliver, why would she be giving you guys those things?” 

Oliver still didn’t look up from the arrows but quickly moved his eyes to glance at John. “I don’t know.” He mumbled. 

“You asked this girl to help us, what, twice? Have only met her as the Green Arrow a few times, so why would she be giving gifts?”  
John’s voice sounded accusing, as though he knew what it was that Oliver wasn’t telling them. That he had snuck his way into her apartment more than once. 

The truth was, he really didn’t know why she would have left him and Roy those eye masks but what he did know, was that she knew he came to her during the night. He thought he was being discreet, never touching anything, never making a sound. He never messed with the window, heck it was always unlocked, which was more stupid on her part than anything. She should really start locking it. Maybe I should tell her to lock it. If she knew he was coming to her during the night, why had she decided to gift them with some new accessories instead of running for the hills? Why hadn’t she told him as the Green Arrow, she knew he was there? He felt embarrassed that he had been caught. 

“Dude. These are awesome!” 

Oliver looked at Roy and saw Roy had put the mask on his face. He was moving his mouth in all kinds of ways, opening it as wide as it could, and frowning, smiling big, and shaking his head vigorously to test if it would stay on his face. 

“It’s not budging! No more painting my face in a hurry and looking like I have makeup running down my face! Where did she get these anyway?” 

Oliver picked his up. He hadn’t tried it on yet but Roy seemed excited about it. It was soft so it wouldn’t chafe his face and it was easy to manipulate to fit anyone’s features. It was definitely not your run of the mill fabric, this had cost some money. Where had she gotten these? Queen Consolidate did not make anything like this and there couldn’t be any kind of store in the city where you buy something like this. 

Roy pulled his phone out of his pocket when it went off and read the text. “Gotta go. The lady awaits.” He pulled off his mask and carefully set it on the mannequin that holds his suit. “Later losers.” He said, taking the steps two at a time while dodging the tennis ball that John threw at him.   
Oliver didn’t glance up from the new arrow head he was working on but he could sense John coming closer to him and leaning against the table, his arms crossed in the signature Diggle way and continued to stare at Oliver. 

“How’s Lyla? You two still divorced?” Oliver asked, hiding his face

“Lyla’s good. Yes, we are still divorced. Now why would Ms. Smoak be leaving a gift for you?” 

“I’m not sure John. It’s Christmas. It’s a time for giving.” 

“You sure have been talking about her a lot and asking for her help often. Have you been seeing her as the Green Arrow or as Oliver Queen?” John’s voice sounded accusing and when Oliver looked at him, his eyes seemed to see right through him, as though he knew where Oliver was during the night. 

Oliver stood up and started cleaning up the table, trying to put some distance between the two men. 

“I see her as Oliver Queen and the Green Arrow. I work with her so of course I’m going to see her at work and I see her as the Green Arrow to ask for her help. I don’t see her more than that.” 

Oliver could tell John didn’t believe him, but he wasn’t in the mood to tell him he sneaks into her room at night. John would most definitely frown upon that. 

“Ok then.” Was the only thing John said.

Just then, the big screen that doubled as a TV down in the Foundy with worldwide breaking news. Oliver and John quickly stood up and went over to the TV, ready to see if they were needed. 

A lady in a black blazer with a microphone showed up on the TV with the headline SCARECROW STRIKES GOTHAM AGAIN. 

“We are on site of the man under the mask known as Scarecrow is taken into custody. Scarecrow, also known as Dr. Jonathan Crane was arrested tonight after he broke out of Arkham Asylum last week.” 

The news reporter lady was standing in front of a building with bright lights shining on it and police cars surrounding the building with their lights flashing; many people from the Gotham Police Department walking behind her, keeping civilians out. 

“The police were unable to locate Crane and got a call tonight about a man in a mask who used a special gas to poison all the elites at the Mayor’s Annual Christmas Gala. Those affected include: the Mayor, Lucius Fox, the Distric Attorney, and Lex Luthor. Those are only a few of the many people that are being treated right now.”

An older man in rectangle eyeglasses and a thick mustache appeared and on the bottom of the screen it read COMMISSIONER GORDON. 

“We apprehended the man who goes by the name Scarecrow tonight along with his many decibels who, along with gassing the attendees at the gala, tried to steal the donations and personal belonging of those invited. We were able to apprehend them thanks to the help of the Batman and his partners, Robin and the Sparrow. There were on the scene right away and thanks to them only half of those who attended the gala were affected otherwise it would have been everyone and many more fatalities.”

The women showed up on the screen again, “We have footage from an individual who was outside of the building when it happened. They got footage of Batman, Robin and the Sparrow, who hasn’t been seen in over two years.”

A video was shown of the building the reporter was standing in front of, only this time there were screams coming from the building, a few people were running in and out of the door, dressed in floor length gowns and tuxes, the security running in and trying to get people out. 

Oliver thought about how clear the picture was on the camera phone, technology these days made it so everyone could see clearly what was going on. Suddenly, whoever was recording, pointed the phone towards the roof, where there was a darkened figure standing there, a cape seemingly blowing in the light breeze. The figure jumped off the roof and swung on a rope and crashed into a window a few stories up. Shouts of “Batman!” could be heard from those attending the party. The camera pointed back to the main doors where another man, wearing a face mask around his eyes and a type of red armor with the letter R on his chest, he was also wearing a cape and was holding a long poll. He was helping get people out of the front doors and to safety where the police men where. 

Then a woman came into frame. She was wearing all black with a black face mask but she wasn’t wearing a cape. She had a belt around her waist and a gun strapped to her right thigh, half of her blond hair pulled back on the top. She quickly ran into the building, where the screams were still coming from. 

She must be the Sparrow. When Oliver was on the island, a man in all black they called the Batman came to Gotham City where he worked to clean the streets at night. He had two partners with him, Robin, who fought alongside of him using a long baton to fight with, and the Sparrow. Apparently, people were talking about the Sparrow, she hadn’t been seen in two years and here she was again, helping people. Oliver didn’t believe these people existed until now. He had only heard of them, never seeing any evidence of them. He thought that maybe the Gotham Police Department made up these people to help the criminal activity, but here was the evidence and they were real. Oliver might have been jealous that that he was not the only vigilante saving his city. People called him a Wannabe Batman, someone not as good enough. Batman didn’t kill and he did. He wanted to believe they weren’t real. He wanted to believe he was the only one. It was selfish. 

 

He briefly wondered if Felicity was at that gala, he hoped she wasn’t there. The thought of calling her as her boss, CEO Oliver Queen, and pretend to ask her a question about work but just to make sure she was ok. 

“There’s your proof.” Diggle said, watching the footage of the trio again.

Oliver grunted and grabbed the new sharp arrows then tossed them into his quiver and quickly put the green suit on and on his way up the stairs he grabbed the new face mask off the table. 

* * *

A week later, Felicity stepped off the plane and into Starling City. Her hair up in a messy top knot and her eyes puffy from the lack of sleep she got on the plane ride back home.

“Freaking kids and kicking my seat the whole way back. Couldn’t sleep, couldn’t enjoy the hunky men in the movie. Ugh!” She mumbled while pulling her suitcase off the rotating belt. “Need some coffee or a nap. Or both. Probably both.”

Felicity walked to where her car was parked at the airport sans coffee. It was night time. Her flight got in late so all the restaurants and coffee shops in the airport were closed. She considered going through the McDonalds drive-thru and getting a coffee there but decided she would rather go home and sleep. 

Felicity arrived home and kicked her door open and threw the luggage to the side thinking she would put it away tomorrow. She found Sherlock laying on the couch sleepily looking at her and went over to pet him. She looked at the closed window that led to the fire escape and after a moment’s hesitation went over and unlocked it. 

A few hours later, after he had gotten ready for bed, washed her face and brushed her teeth, she opened her eyes but didn’t move from her spot under the blankets. Her body was aware of whatever it was that woke her up but she didn’t want to move yet, unsure of what had woken her up. What if it was someone from her past? The one person she never wanted to see again. The one person who made her afraid. She didn’t want it to be him. Her heart rate speed up. 

She heard a rustling and felt her mattress shift slightly and saw a blurry silhouette of a man with broad shoulders leaning his back against her bed, and then she knew who it was.

“I’ve been back not four hours and you are already sneaking into my room.” She mumbled sleepily. 

The silhouette froze with his head turned slightly toward her but remained silent.

“It’s cool.” Felicity moved closer to the edge of the bed, closer to the Green Arrow, her head still lying on the pillow. 

“Do the masks fit ok?” she asked.

The Green Arrow turned his head back to look forward, facing the wall. “Yes. Thank you.” He said in a quiet voice, his arms resting on his knees. 

“Did you have a good Christmas? Or do you celebrate Christmas? I’m Jewish but I still went to this Christmas party at my friend’s house. Its tradition and fun. And it always has an open bar so that’s always a plus, ya know? But then they always make sure to celebrate Hanukkah with me. I had a good time. I for sure had a better time than those people at the gala with the mayor. Did you see that? Talk about bad hangover for those people.” Felicity yawned, “was that too mean? The bad hangover joke?”

The Arrow leaned his head back against the bed and listed to her talk, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes. 

Felicity closed her eyes, her breathing slowly evening out into deep breaths listing to his breathing. Then she slowly fell back into a deep sleep. 

When Felicity woke up the next morning, he was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long delay! Life has been CRAZY!!!! Bought a house, got a second job for which I am getting a degree in, have test after test. I have not forgotten about this story at all! Please be patient with me as I am not sure when the next chapter will come out but it will I promise!


	9. A Late Night Run

He was sneaking into her apartment almost every night and she left gifts for him before she left for Gotham? Was she crazy? The Hood, The Green Arrow, who killed how many people last year decided to just ‘chill out’ in her room while she slept and she rewarded him for that? What was she thinking? It’s comfortable, she thought. Why would it be comfortable to have this partially strange man in her apartment every night? Vigilantes, she found safety and comfort in them, that’s way. 

The next night, he came to her again, this time Felicity was already up and waiting. When she had gone to work earlier that day, she didn’t see Oliver Queen. She couldn’t see how he would react to her waking up when he was in her room the night before. But here he was now, standing just outside of the kitchen doorway, in the darkness. Felicity was making pasta as she was unable to sleep and had a craving for some fettuccine alfredo, so there she stood at the stove stirring the noodles when she heard him come in through the window. 

“Hungry? I’m one of those people that makes way to much pasta. I’m pretty sure I have enough to feed the whole IT department at work right now.” She was in her pajamas, a pair of shorts with cartoon pandas on them and her MIT hoodie with the strings chewed on from the stress of studying when she was still in school. “At least I won’t have to make dinner for while now.”

The Green Arrow shuffled on his feet but didn’t say anything. Felicity took the finished pasta, still in the pan and brought it over to her living room with a fork, passing the man in green as he moved out of the way for her. Sherlock jumped on the couch next to her and laid down as she turned on her television, bringing up Netflix.

“You like superhero movies right? Captain America? Seems like something you would like. Or do you hate them cause that’s what you do every night? Too unrealistic?” She had started to play Captain America: The First Avenger, it was the movie she was trying to watch on the plane but was unable to pay attention to it due to the kid kicking her seat the entire trip back home, so she wanted to watch it. 

“I wonder if we could make Super Soldier Serum for real. Not we as in you and me, we as in America of course, then we could have an army of strong dudes and hopefully they wouldn’t go crazy or turn against us, again America, not you and me. That would suck if they tried to fight us and were a hella lot stronger.” Felicity took a big bite of her pasta then said, “Maybe we should focus on global warming first before trying to make a made up serum.”

The Arrow hesitated for a moment before moving over to the opposite end of the couch and took of his quiver and put it, along with his bow on the ground and sat next to it, facing the television. 

When the best friend of Captain America fell out of the moving train to his death, Oliver looked away and saw Felicity fast asleep. She had curled up on her side and was using the arm rest as her pillow, her eyeglasses lopsided on her head and her mouth slightly open. 

He got up and carefully picked up the sleeping women into his arms and carried her to into her bedroom then gently set her down. He pulled her glasses off and set them on the night stand next to the picture of her and the man with the boyish grin then put the blankets atop of her. 

He stopped and watched her for a moment, her chest rising with every breath she took. She looked to be at peace, calm in a world of darkness. He was momentarily grateful that she has never had to experience something like he has; the darkness in this cruel world. 

He shouldn’t be here; the thought comes to his mind. He shouldn’t be here. She is a light and he is the darkness. She might be able to light up his life, but what if he was to darken hers? She is untainted and if he keeps coming to see her and ask for her help, he will darken her light and he does not want to be the person to bring her into this crime fighting, not knowing if he will make it home kind of life.

****  
He couldn’t stay away. It had become his new routine. CEO work and Oliver Queen appearances during the day, Green Arrow work after dark and into the night, then when Digg and Roy left for the night, he would go to the other side of the city and sneak into her window then leave before dawn and do it all again. 

 

She seemed to be his own drug and he was addicted. So he kept coming but he couldn’t let anyone know he kept coming to her. That’s what he thought was best, keep her a secret so none of his enemies would find out about her. The only ones that knew about her were Digg and Roy and they didn’t know it was almost every night now that he went through the unlocked window of her living room. He would also stop asking her for help. If he didn’t have to have her do her computer clicking, he could convince himself that he was not bringing her into this world of darkness and hurt.

Sometimes she was sleeping, other times she would be catching up on some TV shows or working on her tablet or computer. 

“I am a career women ya know? My work never stops.”

Most nights he wondered when she slept. She would be up with him during the night then he would see her at work the next day and she always look put together, like she had a full uninterrupted eight hours of sleep each night and he knew as Oliver Queen, she always had her work done before the deadlines and ready with a novel of information in her head he tried to keep up with as she explained about green energy and applied sciences and he would try to stay awake and wonder again how she was so chipper when the night before, only a few hours before she was explaining the entire plot of Lord of the Rings to him as the Green Arrow. 

Two weeks after the first time she woke up to him being next to her bed, he was opening the window yet again to be near her and listen to some weird theory she had about another character he had never heard of in a book or TV show he has never heard of. 

Landing slightly on the floor, he paused for a second and listened. It was silent. The TV wasn’t on; there was no clicking of a keyboard and no noise of the fan in her bedroom she had to sleep with. But the light to the kitchen was on and a half eaten bowl of cereal on the coffee table along with her tablet. 

He rushed over to her bedroom and found it empty then to the bathroom and found that empty also, the spare room where she kept her desktop computer where he learned she liked to play some game called League of Legends, he had found her there once before, asleep at the desk with her gaming headphones on but she wasn’t there this time. 

He found her purse on the small kitchen table with her car keys still there but didn’t find a phone. It wasn’t like her to not be here. It was three in the morning and he wasn’t in her house but there were signs she was here not long ago. Where had she gone? Had someone found out about her and taken her? 

He sped to the front door, it was locked, even the deadbolt that could only be locked from the inside. The window was the only thing unlocked. Had someone come in through there like he did? Did she think it was him and didn’t even think twice about it? There didn’t seem to be any signs of struggle, no lamps knocked over, no scratch marks on the walls. So what happened to her? 

Oliver was breathing heavily trying to think of what might have happened when her hear a soft meow. He looked down and saw Sherlock sitting by his feet and looking at him, swishing his tail back and forth. For not being an animal person, he had gotten to know Sherlock well the last two weeks. He would make sure to pet him when he got there and before he left. Oliver always sat on the floor and the cat would come lie in his lap and purr as Oliver absentmindedly petted him behind the ears. He even found where Felicity stashed his treats and would give him one every night he was there. 

“Are you trying to take my cat’s love from me?” She asked him one night when Sherlock had found a piece of sting hanging from Oliver’s green suit and cut it off with an arrow head so he could dangle it above Sherlock. 

This time, he didn’t bend down to pet the cat or go to the kitchen where the treats are. He only stared at the cat and wished he could talk to Sherlock to find out of happened to Felicity.

“Where is she?” He asked the voice modular on as always. 

Sherlock only meowed and wove through Oliver’s legs rubbing against him when he heard something at the front door. He rushed toward the door and hid behind a corner with an arrow notched in the bow, facing the floor. Oliver held his breath for silence when there was a beep and the deadbolt unlocked from the inside and the door swung open. 

He rounded the corner, pulling the bow string tight while aiming the arrow at the intruder, his fingers ready to release when he saw frizzy blond hair falling out of a ponytail he knew all too well. 

“Whoa there muchacho, its only me.” 

Her hands were up in surrender, one holding her phone, the other taking out the earbuds that were in her ear, her eyes were wide but she didn’t look scared. She was breathing heavy and was in shorts and a tank top.

Putting the arrow back in his quiver, Oliver asked, “Where were you?”

Felicity walked to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water, Oliver following on her heels. “I went on a run.”

“A run? At three in the morning! What were you thinking?” His voice was louder than normal and was standing close to Felicity. 

“What? You are the only one that can go gallivanting through the city in the middle of the night?” She took a sip of water and leaned against the counter, “I wanted to go on a run so I went on a run. What’s the big deal?”

“What’s the big deal? You went on a run at three in the morning! There could be crazy people out! You could have been – “

“What?” Felicity interrupted, “I could have been what? I could have been attacked or something? How very sexist of you thinking I can’t handle myself. I can handle myself you know. I may not carry a bow but I do know how to cut a bitch if I need to.” 

Oliver stared at her for a moment before asking, “How did you unlock the front door? Because if it can be unlocked without a key, you need a new lock or to move.”

“First this neighborhood is probably one of the safest areas in Starling so I’m not moving. And second,” Felicity held up her phone, “security system baby. Made it myself. I can do all the controls from my phone which includes locking and unlocking the door, same with my car, in case I lose my keys.”

“If the neighborhood is so safe, why do you need such a high tech security system?”

“You never know when someone might try to break in.” She smirked, “They might try to steal my computer parts I have lying around.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now with Arrow done and only one season left AND no more Felicity, I need your favorite Olicity stories!!! Let me know some of your favorites or if you have stories, let me know, I would love to read them.


	10. Get Some Sleep

Oliver Queen was having trouble staying awake in his weekly meeting with Isobel Rochev. He currently had no idea what the meeting was about and couldn’t seem to be able to focus on what she was currently saying. All he knew was her face was getting more red by the second as he continued to stare out the window, trying to keep his eyes open. 

Ha had hardly slept the last week. This week’s villain – as Roy pointed out, they seem to take their turns for the week – was proving difficult for Team Arrow – again, Roy’s words. Then he would sneak away when Roy and Digg would go home for the night and go to the beautiful blonde’s home he was enamored by. He couldn’t seem to stay away from her but while she slept he would stay up not wanting to risk falling asleep. 

“… then we are going to have to correlate the two departments and – Oliver! Are you even listening to me?” 

Oliver filched at her shrill voice as it got louder towards the end of her sentence. He slowly turned his chair to face her and saw a vein starting to show in her forehead. 

“Of course I’m listening. You’re talking about … something.” He replied, running a hand over his face. He really could use some coffee right about now, or a drink. These weekly meetings with Isobel wreaked havoc on his liver, always going to the club after the day was done. 

“I still don’t understand how you are the CEO of this company. You hardly show up and when you do, your late or not paying attention to anything going on around you. Just because you name is on the building doesn’t mean you deserve it.” She had started stacking her papers together and stood up from the other side of his desk.

“Thanks Isobel. These meetings are always a pleasure.”

“I know that you don’t care about this company but I do. I want to make sure we have our shit together before Bruce Wayne comes here. If he sees you don’t have your shit in order, he may back out of this merger. He still can, this is just a consultation, a trial run to see how and if they want to continue this. Bruce Wayne, Oliver! Bruce Wayne! The most successful businessman next to Lex Luthor. They are throwing us a bone here Oliver and we need them to continue that.”

Before Oliver could come back with something no so pleasant, a knock came through his door and opened and saw it was the women he couldn’t get enough of. 

“Oh good, you’re both here.” Felicity Smoak said, walking towards the desk where Oliver was still sitting and setting down a stack of papers. She was wearing an orange dress that flared out a bit before her knees and a small cut out on her chest, her hair was in its signature pony tail. It was a stark difference compared to Isobel, who was wearing her dark hair down and a very dark and form fitting dress. The office immediately lit up as soon as Felicity came in, and Oliver felt himself wake up. 

“Sorry to interrupt the uh… the uh grr,” she waved her hands in a claw motion, “but I figured it was for the best I break up this shindig and your EA isn’t at their desk to say I have arrived. It’s not like you can’t just look up and see though because you have glass walls. Which probably isn’t the safest thing. People are always breaking through glass nowadays. Anyway, just ignore me but not really because I have some last minute papers you both need to sign before tomorrow.” 

“Ms. Smoak, we were in the middle of a conversation.” Isobel snarled at Felicity, crossing her arms against her chest. 

Felicity sorted out the papers needed for the other two to sign, “Yes and it looked like a riveting one, but these papers are more important than whatever this is,” She said motioning between the too. “Ms. Rochev.” 

Oliver noticed the way Felicity put an emphasis on saying Ms. And wondered what the reason behind it was. 

“Thank you Ms. Smoak.” Oliver quickly oput his signature where the yellow tabs were on the papers and slid them over to Isobel, which she signed with a flourish of her hand. 

“There. I have some other things I need to attend to. Oliver, don’t be late tomorrow.” And with that she flipped her hair and strutted out of the office. 

“Always a pleasure.” He heard Felicity mumble under her breath, which made his lips turn up in a smile. 

“So, that’s all I really needed from you. I guess I’ll be going, back to the old grind, ya know?”

“What?” Oliver asked, not paying attention. He was staring at Felicity, even when she was annoyed at Isobel, she looked beautiful. He also liked the fact that she didn’t shy away from Isobel’s glare, she had a back bone and could throw letter openers at someone without batting an eye. 

Felicity squinted at him and tilted her head in confusion, “I’ll see you tomorrow for the big day. Don’t be late, you don’t want the wrath of … never mind. I’ll be going now.”

Oliver quickly stood up to help gather her papers and almost knocked over his coffee cup in the process which would have hit the floor is Felicity hadn’t caught it with some quick reflexes he was very impressed with. 

“Good catch.” He said, taking the coffee cup from her and setting on the other side of the desk. 

“Normally I wouldn’t have been able to do that, but I guess where coffee in involved, I can do anything.” She said with a smile. 

Oliver chuckled and walked her to the office door and held it open for her. 

“Thank you. Get some sleep Mr. Queen, you look tired. Don’t want to spill any coffee on Bruce Wayne.” She said with a smirk. “Hello Mr. Diggle.” 

“Hello Ms. Smoak.” John replied with a smile as he passed her and walked into Oliver’s office. 

When she turned the corner so he could no longer see her, he turned around to face John who was in his signature pose of arms crossed and a judgmental look on his face, Oliver’s smile on his face dropped.

“What?”

“What’s going on between you too?” He asked in his gruff voice. 

“What do you mean? Nothing. Not sure what you are talking about.” He bowed his head and walked back over to his desk. 

“Oliver,” John followed him to his desk and took a seat, “Does she know?”

Oliver looked up at John, “No, she doesn’t. Why do you think there’s anything going on anyway?”

“You find any excuse to ask her for help as the Green Arrow, she gave you and Roy face masks and anytime you talk to her as yourself, you can’t help that smile on your face that never seems to be there when she’s not around.” Digg gave him a hard look, “If you’re not careful, things could blow up in your face and our faces.”

“John, she doesn’t know anything! Besides she helps the Green Arrow without conviction.”

“That’s the Green Arrow. If she finds out that her boss is him, she could think differently. Just be careful.”

“I don’t think we need to worry about her.”

“Just don’t piss her off; she could probably rob you with a touch of her tablet.”

&&&

When Felicity got home, she was having trouble staying awake. Tomorrow was the big day for her, Bruce Wayne was coming to Starling City and they would be in meeting after meeting to discuss the plans for the merger she had orchestrated herself. Maybe she would finally be able to get some sleep after tomorrow, or maybe in another few months when this either goes well or bad. 

She made herself some pasta, the water boiled everywhere and she had to spend a good chunk of time cleaning the burnt on water. With her over cooked pasta ready, she headed to her couch and put on some movie she only half paid attention to what it was, and before she knew it, she had fallen asleep. 

It was some time later when something had woken Felicity up. She quickly sat up and found herself in her living room, her lights were off but her TV still glowed in the dark. She turned towards her window; she saw a figure sitting in the arm chair that sat next to the couch she was on. The figure had a hood on and was slouched to the side and she realized he was asleep, a bow leaning up against the wall. 

Geez, when I told him to get some sleep, I didn’t think he would sleep here. 

She heard the scratching noise that had woken her up. She got up and slowly tiptoed across the living room to the bathroom and opened the door and Sherlock came walking out, swishing his tail and meowing at her. 

“How do you always lock yourself in the bathroom?” she whispered at him.

This was not the first time that Sherlock had locked himself in the bathroom, in fact it was about the one billionth time now and she still didn’t know how he did it. She could guess, he would rub up against the door and shut it but she didn’t know was why he kept doing it and would wake her up All. The. Time. 

After going to the bathroom herself, Felicity, wide awake now, snuck around the apartment and cleaned up the left over pasta and started the coffee maker but not before stopping a moment to make sure the man sleeping in her chair was still breathing.

After a moment, she saw the sky turning to a lighter color and saw the time was just after five in the morning. 

“Crap.” She mumbled into her coffee cup. “Ok let’s do this.”

She walked over the to the sleeping man in her chair and considered throwing a book at him to try to wake him up, he probably wouldn’t appreciate coffee being poured on him. 

“Wake up Mr. Arrow. It’s going to be light out soon. Don’t want to do the walk of shame in the day do you?” She nudged him with her foot. “Dude, come on – oh!” 

Suddenly her feet came out from under her and she hit the floor with a hard hit to the back of her head and there was a heavy weight on top of her and it took a moment for her to catch her breath. She could feel the hot coffee soak into her pajama bottoms, soaking her underwear and felt a sharp stinging pain on the front of her neck. 

Opening her eyes, she saw a darkened figure above her hovering above her, the weight of him causing her diaphragm to constrict and not able to breath anymore. She couldn’t see his face but could feel him breathing fast and realized he was holding something, maybe an arrow head? A knife? To her throat, the something that was sharp against her neck. The other hand was wrapped around her throat, just another thing causing her to not breathe. 

Felicity reached her hands to the arrow in his hands and the other for a broken shard from the coffee cup but stopped suddenly and let go, waiting for him to let her go. 

“Al - al - Ol - ” She tried to get out but was unable to. 

He dug the arrow head deeper into her neck before swiftly pulling away and jumping to the other end of the room, right in front of the window. 

She took in a big raspy breath and coughed until she could feel the muscles in her stomach working, rolling over onto all fours, thinking she was going to throw up. 

After a minute, she used the armchair that was now empty to lift herself up onto her feet. The Green Arrow was breathing so heavy, she could see his shoulders moving up and down, he also had his bow in his hand already.

“I’m sorry.” He said in his deep voice. “I’m sorry.” 

He swiftly turned around and went out the window faster than she could catch him. 

“Wait!” she tried to call out, but her voice wouldn’t cooperate with her. 

But he was gone and she could feel a warm sticky substance running down her throat.


	11. Bruce Wayne

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to say, I have been excited for this chapter! I wrote it so fast and could have probably kept going! Things will be changing a bit more now so tell me what you think.

“I’m late, I’m late for a very important date. Ugh!” Felicity kept chanting over and over as she half jogged through Queen Consolidated. “Hold the door!” she yelled at the man in a suit that waited for the elevator door to close. He quickly put his arm between the closing doors as she dodged another man in a suit who was using a walker.

 

“Oh, thank you.” She told the man in the suit as she pushed the button to the top floor repeatedly like it make the process faster.

 

_I’m late, I’m late…_

 

Felicity keep tapping her foot, watching the numbers above the door creep by slowly. _Oh come on._ The door to the elevator dinged opened for the third time as it made its way up the building, causing Felicity to tap her foot faster.

 

Felicity was never late. If anything, she was annoyingly punctual, always arriving much earlier than she needed to be. It had always been that way for her growing up except when her mother had to drive her to school; it would give her anxiety cutting that close to class. She never liked to give other people rides because they always seemed to be running late, making her late. When she had her interview for Queen Consolidated, she had arrived an hour before and had to force herself to walk around the block and get a coffee.

 

But of course she was late on this day, the most important day of her life. No, she wasn’t having kids, and no, she wasn’t getting married – _as if_ – she scoffed at the thought. No it was the big day of the merger. People were coming from Wayne Enterprises, Bruce Wayne himself, and they were going to try to save QC. If things went well, it would be good for her work reputation, she like her job and if she could save a major company like QC, it would look good for her to maybe run her own company one day. If it went horrible, well she could always move again, maybe change her name, open a coffee shop, read books, and never go on the internet again as the down fall would be talked about for decades to come and it would be all her fault.

 

_Get it together Smoak._

The door opened again and through her head back in frustration, the cut on her throat making itself known. She wouldn’t have been late if it were not for the cut on her neck currently covered with a band aid. She touched her hand to the band aid and filched, but not from the pain but because of what happened after she received it.

 

She didn’t go back to bed after the Green Arrow ran out on her; instead she went on an early run as the sun rose in the city. She knew she wouldn’t find him but she couldn’t help but look for the man as she took her run. Of course there was no sign of him, but that was unsurprising. She could have gone to his hideout under the nightclub, but her showing up would probably make things worse with him. Instead she went home and showered and did some work on her tablet.

 

When it was time to get ready for work, she went through her normal routine of makeup and hair but then the cut on her neck started to bleed again. The sight of blood on her didn’t freak her out, she was used to blood but the people at work probably wouldn’t appreciate if the front of her dress was covered it blood. So she but a band aid on it and went to work on how to cover it up, thinking Oliver Queen wouldn’t like to see what he did, even if it was on accident. The only collard clothes she had were jackets and button up blouses and she really wanted to wear the dress she had picked up but without a winter jacket. She had no fashionable scarves; they always scratched her neck and gave her a rash. She threw her concealer down in defeat and went with nothing but a band aid, thankful she bought some normal looking ones so she wouldn’t have one of the princess ones on plain view on her neck. She did decide to keep her hair down in soft curls; it made her feel as though it was a little bit covered up, even if it wasn’t.

 

“Finally.” She said as the elevator finally arrived at the top floor of Oliver Queen’s office. She ran out the door and surpassed the assistant sitting at his desk and went straight through the door to his office where there were people standing around and talking.

 

“I’m so sorry I’m late.” She said hurriedly walking to the couches in the officer where everyone was standing by.

 

She saw Isobel open her mouth to say something most likely snotty when a dark skinned man with age spots and grey hair stepped into view and took one of her hands in both of his.

 

“Ms. Smoak, it’s so good to see you again.” He said in a voice so wonderful she always though he could be a narrator for some animal documentary that she could fall asleep to.

 

“Mr. Fox, how have you been?” she asked, giving him a hug.

 

“I’m still kicking.” He replied with a kind smile.

 

Felicity chuckled and turned to another man who walked up to her. “Felicity Smoak, my name is William Earle, I am the head of Applied Sciences at Wayne Enterprises, I stated there after Mr. Fox became the CFO.”

 

Felicity shook the hand of the middle aged name who had a full head of blond hair and thin framed glasses. “Nice to meet you Mr. Earle.”

 

“It’s nice to finally meet the famous Felicity Smoak that Lucius and Bruce can’t seem to stop talking about.”

 

“Oh. I hope some of it was good talk.” Her face flushed.

 

“Nothing but good things.”

 

Felicity looked over at the other two still standing by the couches, watching them. Oliver Queen was looking at her with an expressionless face, probably trying not to look at her neck. And Isobel Rochev had her arms crossed and was in another dark dress with some orange down the sides. Felicity herself was wearing a soft grey peplum dress that showed her curves but looked, in her opinion, very professional and would be taken seriously by all these men – hopefully.

 

“Bruce is just on the phone and will be in in a moment.” Mr. Fox said and he started to lead Felicity over to the couches.

 

“I’m here.”

 

Felicity spun around so quick she thought she pushed Mr. Fox to the floor for a moment but then her eyes locked with his. The man she has been waiting to see. Bruce Wayne. The room got quiet as he looked at her and took her in. A smile slowly made its way to her face and she made her way over to him and met him in the middle.

 

“Felicity.” He whispered as she reached her hand out to greet him but he took her by the shoulders and engulfed her in a hug. He smelled like musk and something else she could never put her finger on, he smelled like Bruce. She hugged him back for a moment before the pulled away and looked at each other. He was wearing his signature black tailored suit, he spends too much money on, and his hair was perfectly combed, not a hair out of place.

 

“Mr. Wayne, hel – Oh!”

 

He grabbed her by the head and neck and tilted her head back and her eyes zeroed in on the band aid on her neck. He slowly reached for the band aid and pulled it back to look at the cut there, she only slightly flinched as the band aid pulling on her skin.

 

“Mr. Wayne.” Felicity said, trying to get his attention as he kept looking at the cut.

 

“Mr. Wayne.” She said again more sternly. She could tell all the others were looking at the exchange between them, confused faces taking over the room.

 

“Bruce!” she yelled.

 

That finally got his attention and he looked up quickly at her and then to the others. Upon seeing their faces, he gently put the band aid back in its place and gave Felicity a questioning but stern look.

 

Felicity barley shook her head at him and turned to the others all watching still. Oliver Queen’s eyes were dark as they stared at the band aid on her neck, his face cloaked in darkness after watching what happened between Felicity and Bruce, his hand moving in his nervous tick he does. Isobel looked annoyed and Mr. Fox only turned away from them and sat down, amused.

 

“Shall we begin, now that pleasantries have been given?” Isobel asked. She waited until Bruce and Felicity made their way over to the couches and made sure she had a seat next to Bruce while Felicity sat opposite him, next to Mr. Fox. Oliver sat on an arm chair that faced both of the couches and kept looking between the two.

 

&&&

 

The meeting slash let’s get to know each other went well in Felicity’s mind. Oliver Queen and Bruce only hade like ten snarky remarks to each other but otherwise Oliver remained mostly quiet while he listened to Felicity talk most of the evening. Isobel only touched Bruce’s arms like twelve times and pushed her boobs on him once while they looked at the same spread sheet. She had trouble keeping in her laugh at his obvious discomfort as he tried inching away but she could tell Oliver Queen was also enjoying Bruce’s discomfort and happy to not be on Isobel’s radar.

 

When lunch time came around they decided to call it a break and go eat.

 

“Bruce.” Isobel said in a what she assumed was trying to be a cute voice. “Would you like to have lunch together? I know this great place just a few blocks down.” She stood up when Bruce did and followed him as he walked towards the door, a little to closely.

 

“Actually Ms. Rochev, I have some private matters I need to take care of during lunch, but thank you.” Bruce replied with a straight face. He quickly looked at Felicity and raised an eyebrow at her before leaving the office.

 

“Ms. Smoak,” Oliver said, “Would you like to join us for lunch?” he asked, referring to the rest of the people in the room.

 

“Thank you for the offer Mr. Queen, but I have to run home quickly. I think I forgot to turn my curling iron off.”

 

His face slightly fell at her obvious lie but she turned away from him and followed Bruce out of the room.

 

She made her way down the elevator into the main lobby of Queen Consolidated and saw Bruce Wayne leaning against the wall next to the elevator door. He started walking with her towards the front revolving door. She felt like a midget next to his height and freakishly good posture as he stood so straight.

 

“So. Are you going to tell me about that deep cut on your neck?” He asked, ignoring the people staring at him as they stepped out of the door into the sunlight.

 

“Maybe, if you buy me lunch first. Or is that personal matter too important?” She asked with a smirk.

 

Bruce huffed, “Did you see how close she got?”

 

Felicity laughed out loud, “Oh yea, it was great.”

 

He put his hand on her low back to lead her through the crowd of people, blocking some from bumping into her. “Please tell me you are not headed to that Big Belly Burger over there. I would rather drink your disgusting coffee than eat there.”

 

Felicity laughed again. “So, how’s Dick?”

 

&&&

 

After having a nice lunch where Bruce and Felicity were able to talk and catch up about life, friends and the cut on her neck – which she told him most of the truth.

 

“You vigilantes can’t do anything without me. I’m surprised you two can’t get along. You are practically the same, its kinds weird. Maybe you should start a vigilante club or something. You know, meet once a month, talk about the guys trying to kill you that week.”

 

“Felicity.” Bruce said, stopping her rambling, “How did you get that cut?”

 

“I told you. I just kind of startled him when he came asking for help on some security issue.”

 

Now they were back at Oliver Queen’s office – the first ones back and were sitting on the couch. Bruce was on the edge and Felicity next to him. She thought he might have done it on purpose so he wouldn’t have to sit next to Isobel.

 

They were looking at something on Felicity’s tablet when the others came walking in.

 

“I’m sorry. Are we interrupting something?” Isobel asked and Felicity could tell there was a hint of jealousy in her voice.  

 

Bruce stood up, buttoning his jacket, “Not at all. I asked Ms. Smoak to show me some places I need to go see while I’m here in Starling City and where I can get a car.”

 

The rest of them sat down in their normal seats, Bruce unbuttoning his jacket again and sitting down once Isobel took her seat.

 

“A car?” Oliver asked. “What could you possible need a car for while you are here?”

 

“Some of us don’t need to be driven around by a chaperon. I prefer to drive myself.”

 

“I have a lot of work today and don’t like to drive and reply to emails.” Oliver said.

 

“Oliver I didn’t know you owned a night club.” Bruce said, changing the subject.

 

“I only own it, my sister runs it now.” Oliver replied, eyeing the lack of space between the Bruce and Felicity as she re-crossed her legs, uncomfortable.

 

“Where did you come up with the name, Verdant?”

 

Oliver looked at Bruce with a straight face before replying, “Verdant was the name of the lake house my family went to as a kid. I thought it would be a nice homage to my father.”

 

Bruce smirked at Oliver, “How nice.”

 

“Well I don’t own half of a city but a night club was something I could do my own when I got back.”

 

Felicity could feel the sudden tension in the room before someone interrupted.  

 

“Bruce, if you are looking for a nice night, I know the opera in town has had some amazing reviews. I could take you while you are here.” Isobel said, leaning over in her seat, probably to show her cleavage to him.

 

“Thank you for the offer Ms. Rochev but I don’t like the opera very much” He said, somberly.

 

The room seemed to go still before Isobel said, “Of course, I forgot.”

 

“I own a 1963 Mustang and it works great, never had any problems with it.” Mr. Fox said, breaking the tension, causing Felicity to smile at him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for those who have been reading! I really appreciate your comments! They always make me smile. I was also thinking of making a few spin offs of Felicity during her time in Gotham for Christmas and the full lunch they had. There would be no Olicity though. Let me know if that is something worth reading. I weirdly love the idea of Bruce Wayne and Felicity Smoak. Don't worry! This is an Olicity story - or will be eventually, ;)


	12. Getting Thrown Out the Window

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a minute. :)

Oliver Queen was pouting. Kind of like the same way a kid would be pouting when his mom wouldn’t stop for ice cream on the way home from the park. He couldn’t help it as he walked behind the rest of the dinner party touring the Queen Mansion.

It was later in the day after Bruce Wayne and company arrived at Queen Consolidated and here they were, at his childhood home having dinner along with some of the board members from Wayne Enterprises who arrived in town an hour before. His mother, who has been out of prison for a few months now, had made him invite them all over.

“It’s what you do as the CEO of a company Oliver.” She said much to his dismay. He was not happy about it but he needed to play nice with the company that would be saving his family’s company, even if Bruce Wayne was a dick in his mind.

He wasn’t pouting because he had to have dinner at his mom’s place with Isobel and Bruce, although that was part of it; no, it was because Felicity Smoak arrived with Bruce.

He had sent a limo to pick up the three men, Isobel and Felicity – another thing his mom suggested – but only Lucius, William and Isobel showed up. They were all saying their hellos in the entry way, including Walter Steel and Moira Queen when an Aston Martin Vantage came speeding down the long drive, kicking up dust in its wake.

They all watched as Bruce stepped out of the driver’s side, walked around and opened the passenger side. A long leg stepped out, the other and then Felicity Smoak stood up in a gold sparkly dress that did things to Oliver.

She took Bruce’s arm and he lead her up the front stairs as he spoke softly in her ear that made her laugh.

“Sorry we are late.” Bruce said to the group when they reached the foyer.

“Bruce,” Moria Queen said, giving him a hug, “no apologies necessary. We were only saying hello.”

“Mr. Wayne, Walter Steel, I hope you don’t mind my dinner crashing.” Walter said, shaking his hand.

“Not at all. It’s good to finally meet you. Felicity has said nothing but good things about you.”

“I have nothing but good things to say about Ms. Smoak. She has done great things Queen consolidated.”

“Shall we take the tour?” Moria asked?

They all made their way around the Queen Mansion as Moria explained the paintings or the decorations that Bruce would ask about. Oliver thought he might be trying to suck up. Oliver took up the back of the parade, hands in his pockets as he watched his feet as he zoned everyone out.

Felicity stopped at a small table that held a picture of him and his dad and a ship in a bottle. The others kept walking, not noticing she paused, except for Bruce as he glanced back at her but kept walking next to Moira. Oliver stopped with her, looking at the picture of his father.

“You look creepy in this picture.” She said suddenly, “Like you’re going to murder me.”

“I always hated that picture. I also think that’s the night I peed on a cop car.”

Felicity laughed, “At least it wasn’t murdering someone.” She smiled at him.

When Oliver looked at her smile he had the sudden need to apologize for what had happened the night before, for the reason why she had a band aid on her neck. He wanted to tell her everything, who he was, how he hasn’t felt comfortable with someone like her in a long time, and how he didn’t mean to fall asleep and hurt her.

He couldn’t tell her though. This life was not something he wanted to drag her into. He had a feeling as soon as he told her everything, she would dive in head first, be the women behind the computer. He couldn’t bring her into this life and darkness, her smile proved that to him.

“Oliver.” His mother appeared at the end of the hallway. “Come on, we are about to have dinner.”

“Coming mother.” He said to her retreating form, “Shall we?” He asked Felicity.

“We shall.” She said with a smile.

They walked into the dining room where Oliver took a seat across from where Wayne was pushing in Felicity’s seat for her, and then taking the seat next to her.

Dinner was going smoothly. Wayne was slightly flirting with Moira, Walter was telling Felicity all about his work in London, the others talking amongst themselves while Isobel tried to get Wayne’s attention.

“So Ms. Smoak,” Lucius started, “Now that you have worked for both companies, which one do you prefer?” He joked.

“Oh, I couldn’t decide. Why do you think I proposed this merger?” She joked back, a small smile creeping on her face.

“She’s only being nice, Lucius. She moved all the way on the other side of the country to get away from us. Of course she prefers Queen Consolidated.” William joked back.

“I do hope Starling City has been treating you well. You do seem to go where these vigilantes run around.” Lucius said with an eyebrow raised.

Oliver took a small but sharp intake of breath and watched for Felicity’s reaction about mentioning vigilantes.

She only smiled, her face betraying nothing. “I did live in Vegas and there were no leather wearing virilities there.” She paused, “Unless of course you count Elvis impersonations. They do think they are above the law what with how often they are in the news for some assault they committed. But also some have even stopped some muggings. But yes, living in two cities where there have been vigilantes has been … interesting.” She smiled at Bruce.

“Maybe you are the cause for them.” Isobel sneered.

“Or maybe.” Bruce interjected, sitting up straight, “Maybe you are the Batman and the Green Arrow.” He added with a small smile.

“Please. I’m too busy.”

“Vigilantes,” William scoffed, “They think they are above the law and can do whatever, whenever they want without the consequences. They are the cause of all the crime in our cities then kill just so they can kill.”

Oliver clenched his hands in the table, his nails biting into the skin on his palm. He was just about to say something to this William when Felicity spoke up.

“Batman doesn’t kill. And the Green Arrow hasn’t killed since last year. Maybe he has turned over a new leaf.” He voice was stern, he face showing the slightest bit of anger.

Oliver unclenched his hands, rubbing them on his legs, hoping to get the sting out of his palms. He felt better with her defending him even if she didn’t know she was. The thought of her thinking better of him than the people of Starling City made his heart beat a bit faster.

“Yes, but –“

“Wait!” A voice called out down the table.

Everyone looked over to the man who was from Wayne Enterprises, Oliver couldn’t remember his name. His face was red as he clenched his knife and fork in his hands.

“That’s why I know you.” The man spit out, glaring and pointing a crooked finger at Felicity.

“I’m sorry?” Felicity asked.

Oliver glared at this man, a look he has given his victims during the night. If he looked over across the table, he would have seen Bruce giving the man the same look.

“You were at that party for Harvey Dent a few years back.”

Oliver felt the immediate shift in the room from the Wayne and Company people. They all shifted uncomfortably in their chairs, glancing at Bruce before looking back to the man.

“Tom.” Bruce said slowly, a warning.

“You almost got us killed!” He yelled at Felicity.

“Mr. Rooney. I do not believe this is the time or place for this conversation.” Mr. Fox interjected.

“You just had to play the hero didn’t you!” Tom yelled, ignoring Lucius.

Oliver was very confused. What did he mean she had to play hero? What did she do? He looked over at Felicity, who looked calm in the face of a man yelling at her.

“He was going to kill the District Attorney.” Was all Felicity said.

“If you would have just waited for another minute the Batman would have taken down the Joker instead of saving you after the Joker had thrown you out the window!”

“Tom!” Bruce yelled, standing up so fast his chair fell over, his chest heaving with anger. “I think it’s time for you to g-“

“The Batman left all of us with the Joker and his men to fend for ourselves!”

“If I remember correctly,” Felicity said sternly, putting her hand on Bruce’s arm to get him to sit down again. “Robin was also there to fight off the Joker and his men. There were no casualties and you seem perfectly alive to me.”

“It makes me wonder.” Mr. Rooney said, his voice seething, “Why the Batman would go after you instead of making sure the Joker was put away.”

Moria spoke up, “Mr. Rooney, I’m going to have to ask you to leave my home.”

Felicity continued to glare at Tom, “Are you implying something Mr. Rooney?”

“The Batman jumping out of the window to save one life compared to 60? Now why would he do that?”

“You heard Mrs. Queen, Tom, it’s time to leave.” Bruce said, standing up again from his upright chair.

“If you are implying that I know Batman, I can assure you I do not. Even after the hours and hours of questioning I got from the police department, they have records of me saying I don’t know him. Would you like me to call Commissioner Gordon? I believe he has my statement.”

“Then why-“

“I do not know why Batman would jump out of the window to save me when there were many people in the room above with the Joker and his men; it was probably so I wouldn’t turn into a pancake. Besides, Robin was also there and he Batman knew he could keep you and the others safe from harm.” Felicity’s face was red; Bruce was still standing next to her, staring down Tom.

“Mr. Rooney, you need to leave now. I will get a car to take you back to your hotel.” Oliver said, standing up from his seat.

Oliver and Bruce both walked Tom to the front door and watched as he got into a town car, dust getting kicked up from the tires.

“Mrs. Queen,” Bruce said when they got back to the dining room, “I am sorry for Mr. Rooney’s behavior tonight. I hope you can forgive me for bringing him here tonight.”

Bruce knelt down next to Felicity who hadn’t moved and was staring down at her plate.

“Please do not apologize, Bruce. He was out of line and should not have said those things to Ms. Smoak.” Moira said. “Ms. Smoak, are you ok?”

“I’m fine Mrs. Queen, thank you.” Felicity said looking up from her plate and to Bruce. “But I do think I would like to leave.”

Bruce stood up quickly and helped Felicity out of her chair. “Thank you for dinner Mrs. Queen.” She said as they passed her.

Oliver opened the door when the three of them reached the front door.

“Thank you for a nice night Mr. Queen.” She said to Oliver.

“I’m sorry it didn’t go better.” He said, looking her in the eyes.

“Oliver.” Bruce said leading Felicity down the front entrance.

“Bruce.”

***

Oliver knew he shouldn’t be doing this. He had no reason, no excuse to see. She wasn’t his. She could do what she wanted, see whoever she wanted, but he just needed to see to be sure.

He kept telling himself it was to check up on her, make sure she was ok after the disastrous night at his mother’s house. She had been thrown out a window by the Joker? He had heard of the Joker before. A crazy man dressed like a clown, terrorizing the city. The thought of the Joker touching her made his blood boil.

 He wasn’t planning on coming to her home again for a while. He wanted to stay away for a while, maybe for good after the cut that was now red and angry on her neck for the world to see. But now here he was, scaling her fire escape in order to see if she was ok and also to see if she went back to the hotel with Bruce. It was selfish, he knew.

Felicity and Bruce knew each other well. In Oliver’s opinion, too well. Bruce had said something about how they were friends to Walter but Oliver figured they had to be more than friends.

When he reached her window, he sighed in relief. He lights were on but her sheer curtains were closed, letting him see into her living room but noticed her window was locked. Was she not home? On another run? Did she go somewhere with Wayne? Or leave the light on for her cat?

He was about to turn away, a frown on his face when Felicity walked into her living room. He lifted his hand about to knock on the window when he noticed what she was wearing; a men’s button down shirt, one that looked very similar to the one Wayne was wearing that night. Her hair was out of its signature ponytail and her face was clean of makeup, she was talking to someone, he couldn’t hear what she was saying or who she was saying it to. She picked up her tablet off the coffee table and swiped her finger on the screen as Bruce Wayne walked up behind her, looking at what she was showing him. Wayne was wearing nothing but a pair of boxers and he stepped closely behind her and wrapped one arm around to her front.

Oliver turned away, not wanting to see. He felt as though he was intruding on something he shouldn’t be. He shouldn’t see this, she would be mad if she knew. From the corner of his eye, as he was going to leave, he saw Wayne’s head snap towards the window.

He quickly got up and pulled himself to the floor above and again until he was on the roof, out of sight of anyone who might look up when he heard the window fly open.

“Bruce,” He heard Felicity say. “It was probably just the neighbor’s cat.”

“A cat?” Bruce asked his voice in disbelief. “There was someone here Felicity, I saw them.”

“It was just a cat. The neighbors. It comes around once in a while wanting to get frisky with Sherlock and you just scared her away! Now he’s never going to get laid. You better say you’re sorry.” She said quickly.

“I’m not saying sorry to the cat.”

Oliver heard the window slowly click shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am working (trying to work) on another story I am excited about! It's an AU but I want to get a lot done before I start posting.  
> This story may start moving faster in the chapters. I know it's a slow burn and I get annoyed at slow burn stories my self. Let me know what you think!


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